


Promises and Porridge

by GilShalos1



Series: A Lion In Winter [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Banter, Character Death, Complete, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, Everyone tagged survives though, F/M, First Time, Major Character Injury, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Tyrion/Sansa is only a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-02-21 14:03:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 33,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18703801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GilShalos1/pseuds/GilShalos1
Summary: After the Battle of Winterfell, survivors pick up the pieces and try to decide what comes next. Some find answers that surprise even themselves.SPOILERS for everything up to 8.04. The story itself does not spoil 8.05 but there are spoilers for 8.05 in the comments, so if you are avoiding 8.05 spoilers don't read the comments!





	1. Brienne

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be one more post “The Long Night” Jaime/Brienne fic, because how can there be too many … and then it sort of became about things in addition to that … no idea where it’s going or where it will end, and if you know my other work you’ll know that if there’s one thing I love writing it’s people talking to each other, so there’s a lot of that. 
> 
>  Written in close 3rd person POV, so the narrators may well be unreliable, and character tags will be added as become appropriate. 
> 
> Post episode 8.03, spoilers up to and including 8.04  
> All feedback appreciated.

There was nowhere in Winterfell free of the smell of smoke. There were all the usual smokes of a castle in winter, of any building in winter. There was smoke from cooking fires and smoke from fires burning in hearths when chimneys didn’t draw quite well enough. In the most-used corridors and rooms, there was smoke from tallow candles, thin acrid trickles. Every now and again, a sweeter note mingled as someone returning from an errand in the darker corridors lifted the slide on their candle-lantern and thriftily extinguished the brighter beeswax taper within. When the Lady of Winterfell’s business took Brienne further into what remains of the castle, there was the pungent smoke of tar-soaked torches.

All those smells, that in times past had made Brienne long for the outdoors and fresh air and weather that permitted an open window – now, now though, they _were_ fresh air, ordinary, intimate, household stinks of soldiers and servants going about their tasks, the smell of warmth, of light, of food.

It’s the outdoors none of them could abide, now. If winter were to melt tomorrow every shutter left in Winterfell would still remain shut fast against the smoke that still hangs over the piles and piles of burnt dead, as if the wights were reluctant to let go their grip on the castle and the people who defeated them.

 _But outdoors I have to go_. Brienne would have shuddered at the thought, if she were given to shuddering at anything. Instead, she kept her face blank, although she couldn’t stop a sudden convulsive swallow as her body anticipated the nausea that would grip her as soon as she opened the door.

But Bran, that strange boy, spent his time in the Godswood, apparently indifferent to the charnel stench that shrouded Winterfell, and the Lady of Winterfell wanted to talk to her brother, and Brienne will guard Sansa wherever she goes, whether to the Godswood or Gulltown or the Gulf of the Grief. She swallowed once more and stepped forward, ahead of Sansa, her hand on the hilt of Oathkeeper.

“Lady Sansa.” A voice Brienne recognised instantly, would always recognise instantly, whether raised in anger or silken in sarcasm or, most rarely, soft and earnest. Ser Jaime Lannister strode toward them down the corridor.  “Ser Brienne.” He bowed to Sansa, and although Ser Jaime was capable of turning any courtesy into a study of contempt, there was only the slightest flourish to the gesture, as if he was showing genuine respect. To Brienne he gave only a quick nod, knight to knight.

Brienne had to work hard to keep a broad grin of happiness off her face at that realisation as she returned the nod. _Knight to knight._

Sansa inclined her head, a little more than she needed to, reading Ser Jaime’s courtesy and returning it. “Ser Jaime.”

“You are bound for the Godswood? May I ask to guard you, instead of Ser Brienne?”

“Why?”

He smiled, shrugged a little, unleashing a little of his famous charm. “Because Ser Brienne has not yet had time for her midday meal, or, her squire tells me, even to break her fast. I may only have one hand, but I have a full stomach and am in no danger of becoming light-headed if some danger appears.”

“I have never in my life been light-headed,” Brienne snapped. “As I recall, _you_ are the only one of us who has a tendency to faint.”

Ser Jaime only grinned at her, and turned his gaze back to Sansa. “Lady Sansa?”

“Is it true?” Sansa asked Brienne. “You haven’t eaten?”

“I’m sure I have, milady.” When, exactly, was the question – the three days since the dawn after the battle had blurred together in Brienne’s mind, one long confusing memory of the disgusting labour of clearing the dead from the castle punctuated by moments of dizzying euphoria every time she remembered that not only had she survived, but Sansa and Arya and Podrick and Ser Jaime had as well.

“I’m sure she hasn’t,” Ser Jaime countered promptly.

Brienne narrowed her eyes. “Are you watching what I eat?”

He smiled. “You are my commander, Ser Brienne. Your welfare is part of my responsibility.”

“Then as your commander, I order you to stop it, immediately.”

“And as your Lady, I order you to go and get a decent hot meal,” Sansa cut in. “Ser Jaime can safeguard me across the courtyard. Since Arya is with Bran, I am sure any further trouble will be swiftly dealt with.”

Ser Jaime gave Brienne a smug smile, stepped past her, and put his hand on her door. “Lady Sansa,” he said, with a half-bow.

Sansa stood still. “Milady.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“If you are offering yourself as my guard, your oath is clearly to me.” Sansa’s voice lowered and picked up an edge.  “ _Milady_ , Ser Jaime.”

“Ah.” And that was a tone Brienne knew well, Jaime Lannister looking for a quick answer and a quick exit. “Well.”

Sansa took a step forward, gaze hard on his face. “Or is it that your loyalty is not to me, Ser Jaime _Lannister_? That you have fought for the living against the dead but you will not fight for the Starks?”

It did not take a Lannister’s expertise at court politics to recognise a situation sliding rapidly out of control. “Milady,” Brienne said quickly, stepping forward to put her shoulder between them. “I trust Ser Jaime.”

“So you’ve said.” Each word dropped like an icicle snapping from the eaves, cold and hard and sharp as dragonglass. “He is a man of honour, you’ve said. But what will he honour, that’s the question.”

“I think I have proved myself to you not four nights past,” Jaime snarled, all Lannister pride and arrogance. “While you hid in the crypt –”

“Jaime!” Brienne cried.

Sansa put her hand on Brienne’s arm. “No, that’s fair. Tyrion and I both hid in the crypts while our more martial siblings fought for us. And you _did_ fight valiantly, Ser Jaime, against the dead. But who will you fight for now?” There was a silence, and Sansa pressed into it. “I must know, Ser Jaime. There are only two sides left, and if you are not on ours …”

Jaime’s mouth quirked up, wry, mocking, the smile that Brienne had learned to recognise as _self_ -mocking as much as anything else. “Then there’s a dragon in my immediate future? Ah, Lady Sansa, you see, more than two sides, aren’t there?”

“I can live with the idea that your loyalty is to the dragon queen,” Sansa said. “Less so with your loyalty being given to your sister.” She paused. “Or your lover. I get confused. Which term would you prefer?”

Every muscle in Brienne’s body tensed for violence. Jaime’s relentless attempts to provoke her to anger while he’d been her prisoner had done nothing but teach her that anger was _his_ weakness. Now he would drop his hand to his sword, she knew it and she could not let harm come to Lady Catelyn’s daughter. Of all the times she’d feared they’d face each other with blades bared, this corridor in Winterfell wasn’t one of them, but here they were.

Jaime surprised her. Instead of drawing his sword, he closed his eyes and turned his face to the side. “I fucked my sister. If that’s your point, Lady Sansa, I have to tell you, it’s not news to the Seven Kingdoms and it _certainly_ isn’t news to me.  Let’s cut to the chase. What do you want?”

“I want you to bend the knee.”

“Lady Sansa, this isn’t necessary –” Brienne tried once more.

“Ser Brienne, I disagree. If Ser Jaime wishes to fight beside us, your word, Ser Brienne, is enough. If he wishes to take himself elsewhere for the battles to come and not take up arms against his sister, I’ll understand. But if he offers himself to guard my safety, I will know where his loyalty truly lies.”

Jaime swallowed, and nodded. “That’s fair.”

“Go back to what you were doing,” Brienne said to him. “I’ll be fine.”

 The corner of his mouth turned up in the small wry smile she had conjured up in memory every day they’d been apart. “You won’t, you know,” he said gently. “I know you’re indomitable but you look bloody terrible.” With an easy motion that showed again how many hours of bloody-minded training he had driven himself through in the years since he lost his hand, he drew his sword left-handed and flipped it to rest across the back of his golden hand.

And then, to Brienne’s shock, he knelt and laid at her feet. “Ser Brienne, I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours, if need be. I swear it by the old gods and the new.”

“Get up,” Brienne said urgently. “You can’t swear to me!”

Jaime looked up at her, his face gone suddenly blank. “You refuse my service?” Then the smile came back, but it had a hard, ugly edge. “I suppose I did drive a sword in the back of the last man I swore to defend, come to that.”

“That’s not what I mean!” Unable to bear him looking up at her with such bitterness, Brienne dropped to her knees as well. “Ser Jaime, you _kept_ an oath that day, and I know it. And if I should ever run that mad and do such things, I hope you’d treat me exactly as you did the Mad King. But I’m no Lord to have knights or bannermen! I have no hearth, no table, no hall to put a table _in_! Get up!”

His face cleared and the hard smile softened. “Are you not also Lady Brienne of Tarth? Heir to Lord Selwyn Tarth of Evenfall Hall?”

“That doesn’t count! I’m a knight in service, like you –”

“Like I’m trying to be.”

“I own nothing! I can fulfil no promises! I can’t swear an oath I have no means to keep!” If she had ever shed tears in front of anyone but her father, Brienne thought she would surely be shedding them now.

“But Ser Brienne,” Jaime said, very softly, “I know for a fact that you find a way to keep every oath you take.” He glanced up at the Lady of Winterfell. “And you have Lady Sansa’s oath, I believe?”

“She does,” Sansa said. Her voice held the ring of absolute certainty. “She will have a place at my hearth, and meat and mead at my table, until my last day or hers.” She gave the hint of a smile, and her voice lightened a little. “And her knights and bannermen, too.”

“There you go,” Jaime said smugly, all cocky Lannister again. “So, Ser Brienne, I will shield your back and –” He paused. “Please stand up. Things like this should be done properly.”

Brienne heaved herself to her feet. “Don’t mock me.”

“Never.” He sounded sincere. Being Jaime Lannister, however, of course he couldn’t resist clearing his throat a little, like an actor preparing to go on stage. “I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours, if need be. I swear it by the old gods and the new.”

"And I vow, that you shall always have a place by my hearth,” Brienne said, hearing her voice as if it belonged to someone else, some stranger who took oaths of service from the likes of Ser Jaime Lannister. “And meat and mead at my table, and I pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you dishonour. I swear it by the old gods and the new. Arise."

Jaime did, and sheathed his sword. He had to look up slightly to meet Brienne’s gaze, and for once, for all her efforts to parse his expression, she was at a loss.  She had never seen him look like that at her before, look like that at anyone before. “I won’t let you down.”

“I know that,” Brienne said, and she was so thrown off balance by the sheer impossibility of this man choosing _her_ to rest his allegiance in, of any man doing so but most particularly _this man_ , this impossible, infuriating, confusing and marvellous man, that the words came out far more crossly than she meant them.

Jaime only chuckled, and turned to Lady Sansa. “Lady Sansa, you have Ser Brienne’s oath and she has mine. Does that satisfy?”

“Yes,” Lady Sansa, still with that trace of a smile. “Ser Brienne, I order you to find food and take some rest. Ser Jaime will escort me to the Godswood.”


	2. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie discovers new dangers now the Night King is no more.

 

Jaime stood, carefully far enough away from the Stark siblings to avoid overhearing them but close enough to be by the Lady of Winterfell’s side in a two heartbeats if danger threatened, and endured the stench. At this distance, without being able to hear the doubtless-martial-content of their conversation – and without being able to see the eerie solemnity on Bran’s face – they could easily have been any three young people of any Northern house. The affection between them was obvious. Terrifying Arya Stark, who had in a way assassinated Death itself, was glaring up at her sister in a way that made it clear to any older sibling watching that the Lady of Winterfell was teasing her about something. Lady Sansa, usually of such cold determination that she might have been moulded from ice herself, was smiling.

It was hard not to think of the days when that might have been himself and Tyrion, teasing, laughing, both hiding and showing how much they loved each other with every barb and jest. But of course, the three young Starks had endured and accomplished more than he, at least, had done with twice their years. _Tyrion, on the other hand …_

“What are you doing out here?” the man himself said from behind Jaime.

Jaime didn’t turn his attention from the Lady of Winterfell. “Guarding Lady Sansa. And Lady Arya, too, technically, although she’s more likely to end up guarding me if it comes to the pointy end of things. What are _you_ doing out here?”

“Looking for Lady Sansa. _Not_ for Lady Arya, she makes me feel far too inadequate.”

Jaime snorted. “You, dear brother, inadequate? Who brought the Dragon Queen to Westeros?”

Tyrion came to stand beside him, hands tucked into his belt. “She brought herself to Westeros, I’m just along for the ride, and yes, inadequate. It’s easy to tell myself that my stature excuses my lack of prowess in the lists when I’m tilting my head back to look up at the likes of you and the Maid of Tarth. It’s a far less comforting excuse when someone barely a half-head taller than me destroys an entire army.”

“So imagine how I feel,” Jaime countered, and enjoyed his brother’s laugh.

Tyrion stamped his feet. “Speaking of Ser Brienne, why are you here doing her duty? Not that I’m not delighted, she’s not much of a conversationalist.”

“She does most of her talking with her sword,” Jaime said.

“Yes, dear brother, that’s generally called violence rather than conversation, which one does with words, not swords. So? Is she ill, your Ser Brienne?”

“She’s not –” Jaime stopped. _Not_ my _Ser Brienne._ In point of fact, as of half-an-hour ago, she _was_ his Ser Brienne. “She’s not ill.” Tyrion could take that back to the Dragon Queen, that the Lady of Winterfell wasn’t weakened by any diminution of her most formidable and loyal warrior. “She’s busy. I volunteered.”

“And Lady Sansa Stark trusts Ser Jaime Lannister to guard her back? That must have been particularly persuasive volunteering.”

“I suppose it was.” Ridiculously, Jaime found himself reluctant to tell his brother the simple truth. They were easy words, _I swore an oath of service_ and yet, not easy to say. Tyrion would be astonished, would laugh, would find a teasing joke in it, and he was not ready for that. Not ready to have that moment of utter clarity and certainty, of the closest thing he had felt to perfect for more years than he could count, turned small and ordinary and everyday again.

“You’ve sworn your sword to the Starks,” Tyrion said, and even without being able to see his face Jaime knew his expression would be that thoughtful frown he wore when he was moving pieces on an imaginary battlefield, trying to calculate how that changed the balance of power between wolves and dragons.

“No.” Jaime took a deep breath and resigned himself to it. “To Ser Brienne.”

No laughter, thank the Seven, only a certain lightness to Tyrion’s voice. “Well that’s a relief, for a moment there I thought I’d lost my touch entirely. You know, since you’ve left the Kingsguard, or Queensguard, you are now by law and right the Lord of Casterly Rock.”

“I’m not sure that’s technically true.” Jaime protested.

“Our family tree has undergone a severe pruning, dear brother. There are only the three of us left, and before this is over, either Cersei will be dead or both of us will be. If we survive, as the eldest, you are the Lord and I am your heir.”

“I don’t want it. You have it.”

Tyrion snorted. “I don’t want it either, so you’ll have to have it, and my point is, you’ve just made the Tarths of the Sapphire Isles more powerful that they could ever have dreamed of being, with the head of House Lannister as their bannerman.  A number of people will have to change certain expectations and assumptions after the war.”

“I didn’t do it for House Tarth. I don’t bloody care about House Tarth, or House Lannister any more, for that matter, except for that part of it currently standing in the fucking snow watching the three most terrifying children in the world chit-chat.”

“No, you did it for Ser Brienne,” Tyrion said.

“I did it for myself!” Jaime snapped. “I’m still a Lannister, and we do nothing except for ourselves, don’t we? And I just once, before everything goes to the Seven Hells again, would like to know what it’s like to give my loyalty to someone who’s fucking _worth_ it!”

Tyrion was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. “You’d better come up with a better answer than that,” he said at last, “before Bronn gets here. He’ll give you no peace and show you no mercy if you say _that_ to him when he asks.” 

“Bronn’s coming here?” Jaime asked.

“Yes, he’s coming to kill us both. Our sister hired him. That’s what I need to talk to Lady Sansa about.”

Jaime took a step forward. “We should get them inside then –”

“Relax, brother, he’s more than a day’s ride away holed up in some inn drinking it dry. I long ago promised him that if anyone paid him to kill me, I’d double the price for him _not_ to, and he remembered.” Tyrion paused. “In those days, of course, we were rich.”

“You’ll have to pay him upfront,” Jaime warned. “I doubt he’ll take promises. I still owe him a castle. And a girl.”

“ _I_ still owe him a castle, and a girl, and I’m fresh out of both.”

“And Her Grace the Unburnt, Breaker of Walls or whatever, won’t help?”

“I haven’t told her,” Tyrion admitted. “I’m not confident her response won’t simply involve demands to bend the knee, and bad things happen when people refuse.”

“And you want to put her on the throne?”

“In preference to our dear bitch sister? Unquestionably. She ruled justly and well in Mereen. She freed untold numbers of slaves from bondage. She set aside her own war to fight here, for the living – and the only reason she’s not already on the Iron Throne is because she understands how many innocents would have died if she’d taken three dragons against King’s Landing. But she is at war, and I am her Hand, and my Queen does not tolerate threats to her own.” Tyrion paused, and chuckled. “It occurs to me, brother, that you have both a castle and a girl at your disposal, and your life is at as much risk as mine if we don’t buy Bronn off.”

“I’ll grant you the castle, if we win, and Bronn’s welcome to it.” Jaime heard that tell-tale _we_ a second after he said it and from Tyrion’s look up at him, his clever younger brother heard it as well. “But I’ve no girl to offer him.”

“Oh, come now. Won’t the Maid of Tarth make the sacrifice to save your life?”

Blazing anger roared through him and Jaime only realised his hand had shifted from the pommel to the hilt of his sword when he heard the blade rasp against the scabbard. He breathed, let the sword slide back, forced himself to open his fingers. Harder, he forced himself to make his voice light. “She’d knock me into next week for suggesting it and then go treat Bronn as you fear the Targaryen queen would.”

“I think she’d make the sacrifice –”

“I would kill you myself and then fall on this sword before I allowed it,” Jaime snarled.

His voice was louder than he expected, and all three of the Starks turned to look at him. Jaime raised his golden hand, inclined his head. _Apologies. Nothing to worry about_.

He’d drawn their attention to Tyrion, as well, though, and three young Starks started towards the two Lannisters, Sansa striding ahead as Ayra pushed Bran’s chair.  

“Lord Tyrion,” the Lady of Winterfell said as she stopped in front of them. “Is it me you seek?”

“It is, Lady Sansa.” Jaime was surprised to hear the warmth in his brother’s voice. “I wish I could say it was only for the pleasure of your company, but alas, even that could not draw me out of doors at present. I have a conundrum I seek your advice on resolving.”

“ _My_ advice.” Sansa’s voice had an edge to it that rivalled Valerian steel. “Not that of Daenerys Targaryen?”

“She is my Queen,” Tyrion said. “But you, Lady Sansa, are, or at least were, my wife. And there are times a man prefers a wife’s counsel to a queen’s.”

Sansa’s expression didn’t change, but there was a hint of warmth in her voice when she spoke. “I can offer you neither a queen’s counsel or a wife’s. But if the counsel of a friend is welcome …”

“It is.” Tyrion held out his hand for Sansa to take, and she covered his fingers with her own. As he turned towards the entrance to the Godswood, Tyrion had to raise his arm above his head to provide any meaningful assistance to Sansa. It should have looked ridiculous, the tall flame-haired woman and the dwarf, but it didn’t. Jaime could tell from the shift in Sansa’s stride that she was relying on Tyrion to keep her footing across the patches of ice.  And he could read in Tyrion’s shoulders how hard his brother was working to keep her steady.

 _Well, well, well._  He strode past them. “Allow me,” he said with a slight bow, and ducked out into the courtyard. No threats presented themselves, and he beckoned the others to follow, staying with his face to the shattered gates until his peripheral vision told him they were all safely through the doors.

When he slipped inside he was startled to find Arya waiting for him just past the threshold. “Lady Arya.”

“Ser Jaime.” Her unsettlingly preternatural composure was back in place.

He would not be Jaime Lannister if he’d been able to resist the urge to try and shake it. “That’s the second time today a Stark has called me something other than Kingslayer. Are you all feeling quite well?”

“Perhaps we feel you’ve earned it.”

“Fighting on your side?”

“Knighting Ser Brienne.”

Jaime blinked. “I didn’t do it for –”

“If you had, I’d still be calling you Kingslayer. Ser Jaime. Sansa says you swore service to House Tarth.”

“To Ser Brienne. Yes.”

“That was smart, putting yourself under Stark protection. Daenerys Stormborn might still want your head, but Sansa will never surrender one of her own.”

“Gods.” Ice water ran down his back. “I never thought … tell your sister that if the Dragon Queen wants me, she should hand me over.”

Arya tilted her head a little. “You didn’t fight like a man trying to die.”

“I won’t be the reason Stark soldiers face dragons.” _The reason Brienne faced dragons_.

“How unexpectedly noble of you.”

Jaime couldn’t supress a chuckle. “Your words are as sharp as your knives, Lady Arya. I’m well aware of what kind of man I am, I assure you. You don’t have to be either particularly noble or particularly suicidal to prefer a quick death to living with the knowledge you’ve caused the end of the only alliance capable of toppling my sister off the Iron Throne.”

“Where is the man who would do anything for his family?” she asked. “Who would do it all again?”

“I have two siblings, Lady Arya, and one of them is the Hand of the Queen who resides beneath this half-ruined roof. And _his_ Queen needs _your_ army.” Her unwavering regard made him want to fidget, _him_ , Jaime Lannister, who had turned studied unconcern to an art form decades before.  “I will fight where Ser Brienne commands, and I will fight _who_ Ser Brienne commands, but I won’t be the cause of the failure of my brother’s cause.” Still the stare, and he couldn’t stop talking, damn it. “You have brothers. Would you want them to fail, just to save your own life? If your life was as miserable and misspent as mine?”

“I have two brothers. Or, as it turns out, one brother and a cousin –”

Jaime blinked. “What?”

Arya dismissed that with a shake of her head. “Two brothers. I had four, of course, until Lannister bannermen killed two of them. Now I have two.”  She paused, and then spoke very deliberately. “One of whom you pushed out of a window, once upon a time.”

 _And now I’ll die_. Deliberately, slowly, Jaime took his hand from his sword hilt, to remove even the temptation to draw his sword against one of Lady Catelyn Stark’s daughters. In this very corridor, an hour earlier, he had taken an oath that absolutely forbade it. “Bran told you.”

“Yes. He also told me I wasn’t allowed to put you on my list, and told my sister she wasn’t allowed to order Ser Brienne to deliver justice for it. He said if you hadn’t done it, the Night King would rule here now.”

Jaime shrugged. “Even if that’s true, which I very much doubt, I didn’t do it to save anyone from the Night King.” She deserved truth from him, this tiny woman who had done the impossible and saved his life as a by-product. _And saved Brienne._ “I did it because he caught me fucking my sister, and I wanted to be able to go on fucking my sister, which would have been impossible the second King Robert found out about it.”

“I figured that part out for myself. Still. Bran insists.” She turned on her heel to go, then turned back, with an economy of movement that told an experienced fighter just how very good Lady Arya would be. “And he told me to tell you one more thing. He said you have no idea what kind of man you are.”

And she was gone. Jaime realised his hand was shaking, and lowered it to the pommel of his sword. _Gods_.  

 _I wonder if Cersei knows that the King in the North is actually the_ least _terrifying Stark._

 

 


	3. Arya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The scariest Starks ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here on, this will be AU although I will probably include those details from the show that fit, or can fit, with my ideas, so fair warning, spoilers for episode 8:04 may be ahead.   
> Yet another chapter of people talking to each other, because that’s how I roll!

 

Arya spun the knife idly, underhand backhand reverse and back, over and over. “I still think he belongs on my list.”

Sansa looked up from her sewing. Not embroidery, not anymore. No-one, even the Lady of Winterfell, had time to waste on chains of flowers around hems when there was an army of men and women with torn and shredded leathers, frayed arming doublets and holed socks.  “Bran says no.”

“If he changes his mind.”

Sansa forced the needle through the leather once again. “Then I say no.”

The knife found its way to Arya’s palm, and she sent it spinning again. “I’d think you want him dead as much as I do.”

“I would.” Sansa laid her sewing down in her lap. “But Lady Brienne – Ser Brienne – doesn’t deserve that.”

“I’d think she’d want him dead, too, once she finds out what he did to our brother, our mother’s son.”

“I don’t think there’s anything that would make Brienne want Jaime Lannister dead.”

“Is she so pleased to have a knight serving her that she’d look past a crime like that?” Arya shook her head. “Not her, Sansa.”

“Gods, Arya, you are so _dense_ sometimes,” Sansa said with a smile. “Next time you’re looking at that blacksmith’s boy –”

“His name’s Gendry.”

“I’ll learn his name when you decide to marry him. Anyway, next time you find yourself watching him hammering steel with that big hammer of his, with his shirt off, all gleaming with sweat –”

“Sansa,” Arya said. “He’s _mine_.”

Sansa snorted, and picked up her sewing again. “I don’t _want_ him, Arya. I’m just making a point. Next time you’re looking at all of _that_ , just pay attention to the look on your face. And then multiply it by about a thousand and you’ll know what Ser Brienne looks like when she looks at Jaime Lannister, when she doesn’t think anyone can see.”

“I suppose she knew him when he was still handsome,” Arya said grudgingly. “But a pretty face is no reason to lose your head.”

“Says the girl finding every opportunity to hang around the smith’s yard.”

“We have an army to equip!”

“We have more weapons than we have men, now.”

“A lot are damaged,” Arya said sullenly, and Sansa giggled. It was so unexpected, so familiar, and these days, so rare, that Arya couldn’t help but smile as well. “Alright, Lady Stark of Winterfell. He stays off my list until you tell me otherwise.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why Bran told us, if I’m not allowed to do anything about it.”

“What would happen if Ser Jaime had a fit of conscience and confessed to you?” Sansa said.

Arya snorted. “The Kingslayer with a conscience.”

“Brienne says he has honour, and I rely on her judgement.”

“You’ve just pointed out her bias.” Arya switched hands and began passing the knife around the fingers of her right hand. “She’s blind to his flaws.”

Sansa dropped her mending again and shot Arya a glare. “I didn’t say she was _blind_ to him. Do you have to purposely misunderstand me?”

“Yes,” Arya said blithely. “Because when I irritate you, for five seconds you’re exactly how you used to be when we were last here together.”

Sansa snorted. “You _hated_ me back then.”  

“You were rather stupid,” Arya agreed.

“And you were a brat!”

Arya stuck her tongue out, and successfully made her sister laugh a second time. “What did the Imp want to talk to you about?”

“Cersei’s sent someone to kill him, and Ser Jaime.” Sansa put the final stitch in the sleeve she was working on and laid it aside. “Tyrion thinks he can be bought off, only, of course, he doesn’t have any money.”

“Neither do you,” Arya pointed out. “Even if you did, wouldn’t it be cheaper to just kill him? It’s not like he could be trusted not to switch sides again.”

“He seems to be sort of a friend.”

“Funny sort of friend.” Arya twirled the dagger once more and then slid it into its sheathe. “What are you going to do?”

“I thought I might offer him the Twins if we win.” Sansa gave a small, wintry smile. “I hear they’re empty.”

“And what does Jon say about that? Or Daenerys Targaryen?”

“Jon will agree. So will Daenerys, when Jon and Tyrion point out the benefits.” Sansa ticked the points off on her fingers. “One, we can’t give it to anyone who’s stayed loyal to Lannister, the bridge is too important. Two, we’ve lost so many Northern houses to the dead, lost them root, stem and branch, that we’ve hardly enough to fill the castles up here. Three, which I _don’t_ intend to mention to Tyrion or his Queen, having the Hand of Daenerys Stormborn owing us his life would be useful.”

“You think she’ll end up on the Iron Throne?” Arya asked.

Sansa shrugged. “I think she’s got two dragons, throne or no throne.”

“But can you trust a man who’ll change sides for a bribe not to change back for another one?”

“Once he holds the Twins he’ll be making more coin than he’ll know what to do with.” Sansa searched in her sewing basket, and pulled out another slashed leather jerkin. “But I’ll meet with him, and decide.” She selected a needle. “It may be that the best option is to let him kill both Lannisters, and then pay him to go south and do the same to Cersei.”

“And Ser Brienne?”

“Will fight all the more fiercely for us with Ser Jaime’s death laid at Cersei’s door.”

“You’re a bit scary, sometimes,” Arya said thoughtfully. “Just so you know.”

 “Says the little sister who stabbed the Night King in the heart,” Sansa shot back.

“I’ve been thinking I should just go south and do the same to Cersei,” Arya said, as much to test out how it sounded aloud as anything else. “It would save a lot of marching. And bother.”

“On the one hand, you’re right about the marching and bother.” Sansa didn’t sound as if she thought the idea was ridiculous. “But there’s the throne. Someone has to sit on it, and the Gods know who’d get to it first if all the people we can rely on are up here when Cersei dies.”

“I could _be_ Cersei,” Arya said quietly. “You know I could. Dismiss her soldiers, send her bannermen and her fleet away. Jon could walk into King’s Landing and I could abdicate for him and it would be over, neat as that.”

“You can’t,” Sansa said. “I wish you could. But he’d never be accepted, not once people found out. It’s stupid, I know, but there has to be a battle.”

“Who says people would find out?”

“People _always_ find out. Always. Maybe not now, maybe not for years – maybe not until Jon’s married and has children who are heirs to the throne and some stubborn, honourable Hand of the King starts looking into things that he shouldn’t –”

“Alright.” Bringing up their father was a low blow, admirably so.  “But I am going to kill her. Just … not until you say I can.”

“That seems reasonable,” Sansa said. “Do you have any mending to do?”

Arya sighed. “Yes. I’m just putting it off. You know how awful I am at sewing.”

“I remember.” Sansa glanced up and smiled. “That’s why I’m offering to do it for you.”

 


	4. Brienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne realises that there are additional complications to accepting Jaime's oath - and the man himself isn't making her life any easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the detour in the last chapter, I started thinking about what the Starks would think and say if they found out about Jaime and the window-push and that conversation wanted to be written. And now, we resume our usual programming of pining and mixed messages and longing looks and charged banter!   
> Also, like many people I have emotional whiplash after 8.04 and I’m not entirely sure how that’s going to affect this story because OMG and WTF and all the feels, ALL OF THEM.

 

Infuriating as it was to admit, Ser Jaime had been right. Brienne had realised the moment she sat down at one of the benches in the Great Hall with a bowl of porridge that she was ravenously hungry, so hungry it made her head swim. It was, after all, possible that the meal she vaguely remembered having had been yesterday, rather than today.

She concentrated on that, on trying to remember just when and what she’d last eaten, on the need to eat _this_ meal more slowly than she wanted, on the exact flavour and texture of the porridge in her mouth, because she knew that if she didn’t, her mind would inevitably return to … to the Thing That Had Just Happened.

Which she was not going to think about until she could go somewhere by herself and work out what she felt about it without Tormund across the room staring at her as he slurped porridge from his spoon like he was … Brienne didn’t really want to contemplate the rest of that thought.

Although since she was, as Ser Jaime reminded had pointed out, the heir of Tarth, perhaps the thing to do if they survived the war to come would be to accept Tormund’s advances, get herself wed and bred, and provide her family with another generation.

The thought made Brienne shudder. Still, it was her duty. When the time came, she’d just have to knuckle down and get to it. Come to think of it, Ser Jaime would probably end up with Casterly Rock if they came out on the winning side, and he’d have to do the same thing.

Of course, Jaime Lannister would have far more options to chose from than her own single, giant, drunken wilding.

And then, through the chink in her mental defences, _Gods if he ends up the head of House Lannister he’ll be my bannerman as well as my knight._

_He’ll be asking my approval for whatever match he wants to make._

That was more than she could contemplate, here in the Great Hall, and she shoved her bowl away and got to her feet in a hurry. Her sword caught on the bench, because the only place a great lumbering cow like her was graceful was on the field of combat. She jerked it loose and walked, just short of a run, out of the nearest door and around the nearest corner and down. One flight of stairs, two, into the dark space between two smoking pine-tar torches –

And there, she could stop, and lean her forehead against the stone wall, and close her eyes and face the fact that there was one of two unbearable things inevitably ahead of her. Either Jaime would fall – or she would have to sit and listen to him tell her all the virtues of the woman he wanted to wed.

_Stupid_. Of course she’d far rather have him married than dead. If she cared anything for him, she’d want him happily married. Happy, and married, and doting on a brood of children he could love openly. Mended, from the damage Cersei had done.

Still, the tears came.

How she stood there, fighting her useless, womanly tears, Brienne didn’t know. She only knew it had been too long when she heard the last voice in the world she wanted to say, “Ser Brienne?”

Even that was a stupid, useless lie to herself, because Jaime’s voice would always be the only one she longed to hear. She cleared her throat. “A moment.”

“Tormund said he’d seen you come this way,” Jaime said. Brienne heard his footsteps come closer, quiet, because he always moved so lightly. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing,” she said curtly, not turning.

“You’re –”

“There’s _smoke_ in my _eyes_ ,” she snarled.

“That’s exactly what I was about to say.” He moved even closer, and his left hand came into her field of vision, holding a rather grey handkerchief. “I know it looks grubby but it’s clean. I find myself fresh out of bleached linen squares today.”

“Understandable.” Brienne took the cloth and wiped her eyes.

“There was a time when I would have been outraged to be so deprived, even after the end of the world,” Jaime said, his tone all languid self-parody.

Brienne snorted with laughter, wiped her eyes again and turned to face him. “You must have been insufferable.”

“I _was_ insufferable, remember? You told me so, frequently, or words to that effect.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “And then you beat me up and held my head underwater.”

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Brienne said, not for the first time. “But you were very irritating.”

“And I started the fight,” Jaime pointed out. “Despite having given my word to Lady Catelyn. Not my finest moment.” And then, ruefully, “Unfortunately not my worst, either.” He sighed. “In those days, I was desperate to get back to Cersei.”

“But not now.”

He chuckled. “I’ve come to this frozen armpit _despite_ knowing it was about to be besieged by an army of animated corpses specifically to get away from her.”  

“That’s not true,” Brienne said swiftly, forgetting herself enough to put her hand on his arm. “You came here _because_ we were about to be besieged, not despite it. You came because you were needed, and because it was the right thing to do.”

“You have always had such an unreasonably high opinion of me, Ser Brienne.” His voice was light and mocking.

Brienne refused to be drawn. “You have justified it again and again, Ser Jaime.”

For the second time that day, he gave her a look she couldn’t work out, although this time perhaps it was just the poor lighting from the feeble torches. Certainly, when he spoke, his voice was light and matter-of-fact. “The Lady of Winterfell is in her solar with the Lady Arya. Tormund Giantsbane and Sandor Clegane are on guard outside her door.”

“Two men? You expect trouble?”

“I always expect trouble, Ser Brienne, which is one of the reasons I’m still alive. And I should mention, since you’ve a right to know as both my Lady and my commander, there’s a man on his way here to kill me.”

He said it so easily and casually that it took a few seconds for the meaning to sink in. Brienne gaped at him. “What? Who?”

“Bronn. Unfortunately he’s quite competent, but don’t worry, he’s also here to kill my little brother and Tyrion is even more skilled at remaining alive than I am, since even more people want to kill him than want to kill me. He has a plan.”

Brienne narrowed her eyes. “And what is this plan, exactly?”

Jaime smiled. “He’s going to pay him even more _not_ to kill us.”

“That’s a terrible fucking plan!” Brienne slammed her hand against the wall. “Men who switch sides for money will switch back again for more. We should find him, and –”

“He saved my life. More than once, actually. Tyrion’s as well.” Jaime shrugged a little. “Although, admittedly, we were paying him at the time, or at least, promising to pay him.”

Brienne sighed, leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. “Oh, this just gets better. You both owe him money? And you haven’t got a pot to piss in. Meanwhile Cersei, who has the Iron Bloody Bank backing her – seven bloody Hells, Jaime, unless it’s really true that Lannisters shit gold – and I know for a fact that _you_ don’t – this is Tyrion’s worst plan since he trusted your sister to do what was right instead of what was selfish!”

He flinched, and Brienne wished she’d bitten her tongue, bitten it clean off, instead of speaking. “He’s asked Lady Sansa for help.”

Brienne took a deep breath. “That’s a better plan,” she admitted. “And I shouldn’t have said – that.”

“It’s true.”

“She’s still your sister.” She cleared her throat. “Have you had anything to eat yourself yet?”

He smirked at her. “Of course, what sort of Lannister do you think I am? Looking out for myself is _always_ my first priority.” Then he glanced around the corridor. “Despite … current evidence to the contrary.”

Brienne reached out and took his golden hand. His cold carved fingers were beneath her own before she even knew she was going to do so. “Despite _all_ the evidence to the contrary. Come on. We’d better find ourselves something useful to do.”

“Must you always be so practical and reliable?” Jaime complained, but when she started toward the stairs he let her tow him along. “Whatever happened to feasting and carousing to celebrate a famous victory? There must be wine in this castle _somewhere_. My brother is here, after all. He’s within five feet of a wineskin at all times –”

“Shut up,” Brienne said. “If you wanted to spend the evening drinking with Lord Tyrion, you should have gone looking for him, not for me.”

Jaime stopped dead on the stairs, tugging his golden hand from her grip, and for a moment Brienne thought he was about to do exactly that, go looking for his brother and as much wine as the dwarf could commandeer.

Then he held out his left hand to her with a smile that made him, for a moment, as handsome as the young man she’d met all those years ago and as beautiful as the battered warrior who’d touched her shoulders with his sword and given her the one unobtainable thing she’d wanted most in this life. “If you’re going to drag me around, Ser Brienne, you’d be wiser to do so by the hand I can’t simply _unstrap_.”

She snorted, and took his warm, strong swordhand in her own. “You say that as if I haven’t seen you struggling to unbuckle your own armour.”

“Yes, I’ll need help with it later.”

It was a simple statement of fact, but for a moment Brienne’s thoughts skittered off in what were, quite frankly, entirely inappropriate directions. She looked away, and started up the stairs again. “I’ll lend you Podrick.”

“I’m sure Podrick has enough to do.”

“Well I’ve only got the one squire, so it’s him or sleeping in your armour.”

“So harsh these days, Ser Brienne. Time was you were glad to assist me.”

Brienne snorted. “I was never _glad_ to. It was just that you were too busy dying to learn how to unfasten your own breeches.”

He stopped again, his hand closing firmly around hers so she had to either stop with him or jerk away. “I would have died, if not for you.”

“I know.” She looked him up and down and sniffed. “I’m glad to see you’ve toughened up since then.”

Jaime gave her that smile again. “I’m glad to see you haven’t changed.”

 So to him she was still that raw girl who had let her prisoner get his hands on a sword? Brienne pulled her hand free. “We’ve all changed,” she said stiffly, and left him standing on the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's a bit out of character for Brienne to cry, even a little, but I really wanted the handkerchief bit, so forgive me. Say she's very tired and they're all on edge?


	5. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne is not the only one on the edge of exhaustion.

 

“Brienne! Ser Brienne!”

Her long legs carried her down the corridor at a speed Jaime had to lengthen his own stride to match.  “There’s a lot of wood to carry,” she said curtly. “We may as well help, unless you have something more important to do, like drinking.”

“I’m not averse to lending a hand, but don’t you think stoking the fires –”

“For the funeral pyres, tomorrow.”

“Oh.” The wights had burned, but their own dead still waited. “Then that – would be my honour.”

Brienne gave him a sideways glance, suspicious. “Yes. It would.”

 _Gods, does she have to expect a hidden barb in every sentence?_ Although, in all honesty, he had no-one to blame for that but himself. What had he done for all those long weeks when they were first together but taunt and torment her? Still, later, he had thought they’d reached a point where that was no longer the case …

 _Clearly not_. Ridiculous that he should feel hurt, ridiculous that he should feel any right to care what anyone in the world thought of him, after the things he’d done. And ridiculous that any Lannister should care what people thought of them, when it came down to it.

Yet it _did_ hurt, a small keen pain in the centre of his chest that made him angry with himself for feeling it and angry with her for causing it. _I gave you my oath and my sword._

_You spoke for me in a room full of people who wanted to kill me._

_You said there was honour in me_.

But she’d never said there was kindness in him, had she? And he’d never given her cause to.

They reached the courtyard and he stooped to the stack of logs cut ready. “If we each take one end.”

“I can carry one myself.”

“I’m sure you can, Ser Brienne, but I –” He raised his hands, one flesh, one gold. “Would have more difficulty.”

She flushed. “Of course. That was … thoughtless of me.”

“I’m flattered.” They stooped together and hoisted the log. “Clearly I fought well enough on the walls that you forgot I’m only half the man I was.”

“You’d be a very small man, smaller even than your brother, if one palmful of flesh made up half of you,” Brienne retorted, striding towards the ruined gates and forcing him to follow.

“That’s not what I –”

“I know what you meant,” Brienne snapped. “I was disagreeing with you.” She stopped dead, forcing Jaime to stop as well, and looked over her shoulder at him. “This is a task that should be done in respectful silence. Do you think you could manage that?”

He nodded. _In respectful silence_.

They laboured through the last of the daylight, and then, by the light of torches, into the night. At first Jaime found the silence wearying, but the logs were bloody heavy and before long he was fighting too hard for breath to have been able to talk even if Brienne had permitted it. All around them men and women worked to the same end, and by the time the last log was laid, the sight of the rows and rows of pyres making real the overwhelming number of their dead robbed Jaime of any desire to speak, or to eat, or to do anything than get his damned armour off and find something, anything, to get drunk on.

When Brienne indicated the gates with a jerk of her chin, he stumbled after her wordlessly. In the courtyard, the flickering light and shadow of the flaring torches mazed his vision. Trying to pick his way between the lumps of masonry still scattered here and there, Jaime felt one foot come down on slick ice and slide out from beneath him.

He had only time for one startled oath and the realisation he was about to fall on, and doubtless break, his only useful arm, before Brienne caught him. Even through his armour he could feel the hard edges of hers, and the strength beneath them.

They could easily have both died just nights ago, and this clumsy, armour-encumbered embrace of necessity was the closest he’d been to her since Harrenhal. Jaime blinked hard before Brienne could see the moisture in his eyes.

“Are you alright?” Brienne’s voice was soft and oddly tentative.

“I lost my balance.”

“I saw.” She was still holding him, and he, Jaime realised, was still holding on to her. “Have you got it back?”

“Yes. Yes, I have.”

“Then you could probably let go of me now.” Despite her words, her arms around him didn’t loosen.

He should drop his arms, step back to force her to drop hers, and make a joke. Something about making a habit of collapsing in her arms, perhaps, or about always dreaming of being saved by a chivalrous knight … But he didn’t, and she didn’t, and when he opened his mouth to say something witty and charming and set them back to the distance they should be from each other, a hard sob came out instead. “I thought they’d killed you. I could hear you and I couldn’t get near to you and then you stopped and I thought they’d killed you.” He couldn’t stop the words and, shamefully, couldn’t stop the sudden shaking that gripped him, head to toe. “I couldn’t hear you and I couldn’t see you and I couldn’t get near to you.”

“Come on,” she said gently, letting him go only long enough to pull his arm over her shoulders. “Hang on to me. Just walk.”

The courtyard, a corridor, another … Jaime leaned on Brienne and let her steer them, his legs gone weak as a fainting maiden’s. She kicked a door open and hauled him through it, depositing him in a chair.

It was warm, gloriously so, a fire blazing in the hearth. It was quite possibly the warmest Jaime had been since he’d started for the north, in fact. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and then fumbled left-handed at the laces of his cloak.

“Leave it,” Brienne ordered. She drew her gloves off and unfastened it for him. “I fail to understand how you managed to travel all the way to Winterfell without learning how to undress yourself.”

Her tone was familiarly brusque, welcomely so. Jaime drew a breath and felt the shaking begin to subside. His head cleared enough for him to risk sitting upright. “If you think there was any point of that journey where I was warm enough to want to take off so much as a glove, you’ve become even more of a Northerner than I thought. When this is over, let’s go somewhere warm.”

Brienne straightened, unfastening the straps of her own armour with brisk efficiency. “Like Dorne, you mean?”

Jaime shook his head. “Dorne didn’t agree with me. I was thinking about …” Wise second thoughts advised him to cowardice, and he almost said _the Arbor_ , but the memory of her strong armoured arms around him came back to him so strongly he could feel her breath warm against his cheek. _Wise second thoughts can go fuck themselves._ “About Tarth, actually.”

She stared at him as if he’d just suggested a jaunt to sunny Hardhome, frozen in the act of taking off her breastplate. “Tarth?”

“You told me it’s beautiful.”

Slowly, she lowered the breastplate and set it aside. “It is.”

“And it will be warmer than here.” He snorted, and began to struggle with the buckles on his own armour. “Everywhere will be warmer than here.”

“It would be warmer.” Brienne’s vambraces joined the pile and she began on her cuisses.

“Then we should go.”

“Why?” The last of her armour off, Brienne took a quick stride and knelt by Jaime’s chair. She batted his hand away. “If I can teach myself to get in and out of full plate without help, you really have no excuse not to be able to undo a buckle.”

“Why not?”

She glanced up at him. “Why do you have no excuse?”

“Why not go to Tarth?”

Brienne’s fingers stilled a moment, and then she undid the last buckle and pushed the jack of plate off his shoulders. “Lean forward.”

Jaime did as she instructed, giving her room to work the jack down his arms. It brought him close enough to her to feel the warmth of her body despite the heat in the room, to smell smoke and sweat and leather and the oil that Podrick used on her armour. “You’re a knight,” he reminded her. “Closest and most trusted advisor to the most powerful woman in the north. Provided my sister doesn’t find a way to kill us all, you should go back to Tarth.”

The sleeve caught on his golden hand and Brienne worked it free. “And marry?”

 _No_. He took a breath. “If you want to marry, you should marry. But I meant you should show your father who you are. Any father would be proud to have a child like you, you know.” Gods, if he leaned only slightly forward his lips would be against her cheek and if he turned his head their mouths would meet and he would know if she tasted as she smelled, of hard training and hard work and honour.

Brienne leaned back and stared at him. “Are you _sniffing_ my _hair_?”

“What? No!” Jaime cleared his throat. “Why would I sniff your hair?”

“Why would you travel the length of the country in armour you can’t get yourself out of?” Brienne countered.

“I told you, it wasn’t warm enough to need –”

She stood, hands on hips. “And if you’d been injured? If you’d needed to stop bleeding? You’ll have to get better at planning than that, Ser Jaime, as my knight. At the moment even Podrick is ahead of you.”

 _Even Podrick_. Jaime couldn’t help but smile, because the plump boy he’d sent off with Brienne was a man, now, and a good one, a brave one, and he’d been surprised at how delighted he’d been to see it.

“It’s not a laughing matter.” Brienne said sternly.

That made the smile turn into the laughter she accused him of. “That’s not – I wasn’t –” He could feel the edge of hysteria threatening, and heaved himself to his feet. “I’ll do better, Ser Brienne. I should go.” He gathered up his cloak and his jack of plate, fumbled and dropped both, stooped for them and felt his head spin as he straightened.

It spun more when Brienne stepped close and steadied him. “Ser Jaime?”

He closed his eyes against the dance of the walls. “Ser Brienne. Forgive me. I am fatigued. I should seek my bed.”

“That’s more sense than you usually show, I’ll give you that.” She took his cloak from his hands and slung it back around his shoulders.

“You’re a good influence.” When Brienne only snorted, reaching for her own cloak, Jaime opened his eyes and grabbed her hand in his. “Brienne. I mean – do you know what I mean?”

She gave him a steady look. “I never know what you mean.”

And could that be true? Could it be simply that, the cause she was tender one moment and cold the next, the reason she regarded every overture of his with suspicion? He smiled. “We’ll use a code.”

“Yes, that will make everything so much clearer, I’m sure.” She tugged her hand from his and grabbed her cloak.

“When I say something I really mean, Brienne, I’ll call you milady. Because you are, now. I swore it.”

Brienne narrowed her eyes. “Except you didn’t say milady telling me that, so by your own rules, you don’t mean it.”

“Can we have a truce?” Jaime begged. “For just – a moment, at least. Can we have a truce?”

She blinked, and looked away. “We can have a truce whenever you want, for as long as you want.” She paused. “We’ve had truces before. You’re always the one to break them.”

“That’s because I am a terrible excuse for a man.”

Brienne pressed her lips together. “What do you think I’d do if you said something like that about Podrick?”

“I’d never –”

“What do you think I’d do?” she insisted.

“You’d beat me black and blue.”

“And what makes you think I’d care less about what’s said about a knight in my service than a squire?” she demanded. “No more, Ser Jaime, I’ll hear no more of it. Do you understand? Or I’ll meet you in the training yard.” She slung her cloak around her shoulders and took his arm. “Come on. I’ll walk you to your bed.”

“I can –”

“You are asleep on your feet and if I send you off on your own you’ll fall headfirst down a flight of stairs and deprive me of my first and only sworn knight.”

“I can sleep in the corridor.”

Brienne snorted, and began to steer him towards the door.  “Of course you can. As if I’d let that happen. Where are you quartered?”

“In the barracks.” Brienne made a small sound of protest and Jaime shook his head. “It suits me fine.”

“It doesn’t suit your station.”

“My _station_ here is a fighting man. A soldier. I hold no rank. I command no men.” He stopped, and turned to look at her. “Do you know this is the first time since I was fifteen years old I have had absolutely no responsibility? It feels rather nice.”

Brienne opened the door with her free hand and steered him through. “I wouldn’t know.”

“That’s why we should go to Tarth, when this is over.”

“I’ll have responsibilities in Tarth, too.” She paused. “My father will want another betrothal. Watch your step.”

“And you?”

Brienne shrugged. “If I could find a man I could stand who would have me. I’m my father’s heir, as you pointed out. I’ll need an heir.”

“No cousins?”

“No.”

“Find one. Invent one. _Adopt_ one.” Jaime stopped stumbling along beside her and put his good hand on her arm. “Brienne. Don’t marry because you think you should.” It was absurd how much it bothered him, the idea of her in some dutiful, loveless union, gritting her teeth as her husband rutted on top of her, determined to do her duty and conceive an heir. “Find some likely lad who you can stand, or lass, or a dozen of each, and adopt them into the family.”

She studied him, and he desperately wanted to be able to read her thoughts in her eyes, but no matter how he gazed into their brilliant blue, he couldn’t tell. “That’s hardly traditional.”

“Fuck tradition, _Ser_ Brienne of Tarth. You’ve always done exactly what you want. That’s what makes you so –” Wonderful. Magnificent. Glorious. “So _you_.”

One corner of her mouth turned up a little. “Maybe I’ll adopt Podrick.”

“Yes!” He grinned at her. “Adopt Podrick. He’ll get you a litter of grandchildren and take care of Tarth for you and when you’re old and grey and have seen all the world you ever wished to see, you can retire back to Tarth and sit in the sun and tell them stories of all the great deeds of Ser Brienne of Tarth.”

She snorted, and began to steer him onward again. “That will be a short story, I’m sure.”

Jaime resisted. “Don’t be absurd. You’ve _already_ done great deeds. You fought an army of the dead, for fuck’s sake, and that’s just this _week_. You avenged Renly Baratheon. You saved and safeguarded Sansa Stark. You defeated the Hound in single combat.”

“I bit off his ear, bashed his head in with a rock, and pushed him off a cliff.”

“And half the duels in all those stories were probably much the same, more than half. Messy scraps in mud with both parties scrambling for anything that would keep them alive a second longer.” Jaime realised how earnest he had begun to sound, and made his voice light. “Besides. Think how much more Podrick’s children will enjoy hearing about how Grandma bit off the Hound’s ear than dull details of thrusts and parries.”

Brienne snorted, but her face lightened a little. “You’re impossible. You do know that, don’t you?”

This time Jaime co-operated as she urged him onwards. “I’d certainly like to be. It has a better ring than Kingslayer, don’t you think? Ser Jaime the Impossible Knight.”

At the door of the barracks, Brienne stopped. She gave him a very steady look. “You’re mine now, Ser Jaime, my sworn sword. Anyone who calls you Kingslayer will answer to me.”

He laughed. “Will you fight half the Stark army?”

“Yes.” She opened the door and pushed him through with a firm shove between his shoulder-blades. “Go to bed.”

She closed the door before he could wish her good night.

By the light of one guttering tallow candle, Jaime found the cot that was his and fell on it face down, too tired to even unstrap his false hand. He barely had the strength to drag the furs over him so he didn’t freeze to death in the night. _She’d fight half the Stark army._

_For me._

_Not for me. For her own honour. That no-one can say the Kingslayer serves her._

_But she spoke for me. Not as milady. Not as my commander. She spoke for me._

He smiled to himself. _For Ser Jaime, her Impossible Knight._

As he slid down the slope to sleep, his last waking thought was how beautiful she was with the spark of humour in her glorious blue eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A ‘jack’ or ‘jack of plate’ is a term for a type of armour made up of small metal oblongs sewn to leather. Usually there was a second layer of leather over the top, which makes what Jaime was wearing in the show not exactly a proper jack.  
> And I know that, in point of fact, in neither the book nor the show does Jaime break the ‘truce’ they come to in the bath in Harrenhal. This is me trying to make it plausible that Brienne would say something as patently untrue as ‘we’ve never had a conversation this long without you insulting me’ when they meet again.  
> After twisting myself in knots, I’ve decided that I’m going to accept 8.04 as canon but fix the things about it that bothered me (it can still fit in with where I’d planned the fic to go) so I’ve updated the spoiler warning to take that into account. From here on, everything up to and including 8.04 will be spoiled.


	6. Brienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The feast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As will be no doubt easily discerned, this chapter draws heavily on the dialogue from the 8.04, with some additions and some changes.   
> I'm also racing to finish this before 8.05 comes along and no doubt destroys all my hopes, so I do apologise for any errors, and if you point them out in comments I'll fix them.

She wanted it to be over. She wanted to spend the barest minimum amount of time she needed to in the Great Hall for her absence to be unremarked and then she wanted peace and quiet and her own room.

Today’s hadn’t been the first funeral she’d been to, of course. It was, however, the first she’d been to for men who’d died fighting under her command and obeying her orders.

She toasted Gendry Baratheon with the rest, but when Jaime raised the flagon and reached to refill her goblet, she covered it with her hand. Over the years she’d seen drink turn men merry and turn them maudlin and she’d never imbibed enough to find out which she’d be. It might be the latter, and she had no wish to blubber wine-soaked tears in front of Ser Jaime Lannister.

He covered her hand with his own, the warmth of his fingers startling, the callouses from his sword rough against her skin. “We fought dead things and lived to talk about it. If this isn’t the time to drink, when is?”

And if the warmth of his touch had startled her, the warmth of his voice and his smile was shocking. She didn’t resist as he firmly removed her hand from atop her goblet and filled it, and after a moment she found the courage – somewhere, somehow – to return his smile, and raise her goblet in a toast.

“That’s better,” Jaime said, matching her gesture, and Gods, when had his voice gotten so gentle? “Be off duty for one night.”

“If something happens –”

“Nothing’s going to happen.” Once, he would have been mocking her, but search his face as she might, Brienne could see no mockery in his expression. Only … friendship, she dared to hope, but if not that, then certainly camaraderie.

“Brother!” Tyrion Lannister set another flagon on the table, put his own goblet beside it, and hoisted himself onto the bench beside Jaime. “Have I told you yet how glad I am you’re still alive?”

Jaime grinned at him. “Many times over the past few days.”

Tyrion hugged his brother, and Jaime’s arms closed around the dwarf in return. “I’m very glad you’re still alive.”

“I’m very glad _you’re_ still alive, my clever brother who hid in a crypt full of corpses to be safe from an army of … walking corpses.”

Tyrion snorted. “Yes, alright. It was still better than facing them in the field.” He released his brother and picked up his goblet. “And Ser Brienne, I am also very glad you’re still alive, and I would embrace you as well but I have a life-long aversion to getting punched in the face.”

“I would never punch you,” Brienne protested.

“I wasn’t talking about _you_.” Tyrion drank, shooting Jaime a sideways look.  “And in a completely unrelated sentence, has my brother ever told you the story of his return to Harrenhal?”

 “It was very boring,” Jaime said. “All the people I wanted to kill were either dead or absent.”

“Apart from –”

“Have you ever heard about my brother’s finest invention?” Jaime interrupted.

Tyrion filled his goblet again, and then Jaime’s and Brienne’s. “I have many fine inventions.”

Jaime turned his goblet back and forth with his left hand. “I’m talking about your game.”

“Oh, yes, that is a fine invention,” Tyrion agreed. He gave Brienne an intent look. “And an excellent idea. These are the rules, Ser Brienne. You guess something about someone else, in the past, and if it’s true, they have to drink.”

Brienne frowned. “And if it isn’t?”

“Then _you_ have to drink. You’ll catch on. Jaime and I will show you.” He turned to his brother. “You … hid your golden hand in a glove while riding north.”

“That is hardly a guess!” Jaime said. “If I hadn’t, I would never have made it to Winterfell alive.”

Tyrion touched his goblet to Jaime’s. “We’re showing Brienne how to play. Drink.”

Jaime drank. “My turn,” he declared. “You’re in love with Sansa Stark.”

“That’s a statement about the present, not the past,” Tyrion said. “You’ve gotten rusty, brother.”

“You’ve flown on a dragon.”

“Wrong! Drink!”

Jaime drank. “I always end up losing to you.”

“So does everybody else,” Tyrion said. “Your turn.”

Brienne looked from one brother to the other, their easy affection for each other making her smile. _So that’s what it’s like to have a brother. Someone you love, someone who loves you, someone who knows everything important about you._ The closest thing she had to that was Podrick, quietly drinking at her side, and as fond as she’d become of him, and as proud as she was of him, Podrick would always be her charge, not her kin.

What would they ask her? What would she ask them? She couldn’t tell if she was nervous or not. _I could find out all the things I always wondered about Jaime_ …

Jaime looked at her, eyes narrowed and then with an air of great wisdom. “Ahh … you are an only child.”

Brienne stared at him. “I told you I was.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“I surmised,” Jaime said loftily.

“Drink!” Tyrion demanded.

Brienne sighed, and raised her goblet.

“Go again,” Tyrion instructed Jaime.

Brienne put her goblet down. “Why does he get to go again?”

“Because it’s my game,” Tyrion said smugly, making her laugh.

“You have … danced with Renly Baratheon.”  

_I told him that too._ She shot a glance at Pod, who shrugged.  

“Drink,” Tyrion insisted.

Jaime looked so pleased with himself that Brienne had to laugh. She drank, and set her goblet down. “You’re cheating!”

“Of course I’m cheating,” Jaime admitted blithely.

“My turn,” Brienne declared.

“No, Podrick’s turn,” Tyrion said, and when she glared at him, “It’s my game, Ser Brienne.”

“Alright,” Podrick said. “You, Lord Tyrion, were drunk all the way across the Narrow Sea.”

“Hardly a guess,” Tyrion scoffed, and drank. “Again. But not me!”

 “Ser Jaime … has known a hundred women.”

“Drink,” Jaime said.

Podrick levelled a finger at him. “I didn’t say bedded. Are you honestly saying you’ve met less than a hundred women in your life?”

Jaime chuckled, and raised his goblet. “You …” he said slowly, “once let Ser Brienne’s horse escape in the night.”

Podrick drank. “She told you that.”

“You already know I cheat,” Jaime reminded him. He turned his attention back to Brienne. “Your sword was given to you by the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.”

“How is it his turn _again_?” Brienne demanded. “I know, I know, it’s your game.”

“Drink,” Tyrion said. “Drink! Drink!”

Brienne laughed, and did, realising that she had discovered that she was one of those who wine made merry. All four of them were, apparently. Tyrion could hardly drink for laughing and Jaime was chuckling. Brienne didn’t think she’d ever seen him so completely at ease.

“You …” Tyrion pointed at Podrick and then abruptly switched his focus to Brienne. “Defeated the Hound by kicking him in the balls.”

Brienne beamed at him. “Wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong! Drink!”

Tyrion guffawed, and drank. “How _did_ you defeat him?”

“That’s not the game,” Jaime reminded his brother.

“No, it’s a genuine question. I like to drink, and I also like to know things.”

“She bit off his ear, bashed him in the head with a rock, and pushed him off a cliff.” Jaime said.

Tyrion looked across the hall at Sandor Clegane. “That should have done it, alright. I’m glad he’s on _our_ side.”

“My turn!” Brienne insisted. She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes at Tyrion. “You escaped from the Black Cells.”

“Now _you’re_ cheating,” Tyrion said with a  grin.

“Drink,” Jaime told him, and Tyrion did.  

“You’re drinking wine but you prefer ale,” Brienne guessed next.

Tyrion gave a shout of triumph. “No!”

She drank, set her goblet down with a thump and leaned forward, happily waiting for his next question, not caring if he cheated or not, because it was not about who won and it wasn’t about the drinking, either, not really. It was four people who had survived the end of the world and who were glad they had telling each other how much that mattered.

 Tyrion frowned in thought and leaned forward. “You’ve never been kissed.”

Brienne felt her smile die. Her whole face felt cold and frozen and for one awful moment she felt so sick to her stomach she thought she was about to vomit.

“That’s a statement, about the present,” Jaime said, and the laughter was fading from his voice as well. “It –"

Tyrion cut him off, gaze still holding Brienne’s. “At no point in the past, up to this very moment, have you been kissed by a man. Or a woman.”

Brienne was no longer merry. In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure she was still even drunk. She felt cold, and clear, and utterly humiliated. Even the dwarf could tell, just by looking at her, that no man would ever kiss her, would ever want her, would ever love her. And it was fine for him to know that, because everyone knew it, everyone who ever saw her ugly face and lumbering form, but to say it, in front of Jaime, to try to force her to admit it, in front of Jaime …

To make a joke of it, in front of Jaime.  

She rose to her feet. “I have to piss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, there were two things about that drinking game that bothered me. One, everyone being so super-casual about Tyrion’s first marriage, given that it was one of the defining traumas of his life, and two, the idea that Brienne would be so upset that Tyrion guesses she’s a virgin. She’s highborn and unmarried – she should be a virgin, by Westeros double standards! I get that the line was a call-back to the early seasons and to her backstory about being considered by everyone to be unattractive, but I felt there were better alternatives, and chose one.   
> I’m also, as you might be able to tell, mixing book and show canon a smidge. Jaime’s return to Harrenhal, where he knocks down a man who insults Brienne’s looks, did not occur in the TV show. But it might have! Off-screen!


	7. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyrion has his reasons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m trying to get this finished and up before the next episode, so I’m posting more frequently than I usually would. Please give the chapters some comment love even if you’re reading several at once!

 

The warmth and happiness in Brienne’s face had vanished in one instant, and Jaime hadn’t been able to find the words to stop his brother and repair the moment, not fast enough, at least, to keep Brienne from rising majestically to her feet and taking her leave.

_At least I stopped that fucking Wilding brute from following her._ The thought of Tormund offering Brienne comfort – the thought that she might be miserable enough to accept it … Jaime’s fist clenched.  He wanted to grab Tyrion by the hair and knock his face into the table and if his little brother had been seated on his left instead of his right, he might have been unable to resist the temptation.

“What is wrong with you?” he demanded, filling his goblet again. “You never used to be cruel, not to those who don’t deserve it. I was the cruel one.” He drank deeply. “When she comes back, you’ll apologise. And you’d better make it a good one, or I’ll forget your height and thrash you as a brother ought.”

Tyrion raised his own goblet. “Oh, you think she’s coming back?”

“If you wanted to talk to me in private, you could have just said!”

“You’ve very angry with me,” Tyrion observed.

“Of course I fucking am!” Jaime slammed his goblet down on the table hard enough to make wine slosh over the lip. “I have known that woman for years, I have travelled half across the country with her, and I have never seen her smile like that, I have never seen her just – just be happy. And you, you ruined it, and for what? Because you wanted to win the fucking game?”

“She was very happy when you made her Ser Brienne.”

“Not a bolt I can shoot twice,” Jaime snarled.

Tyrion shrugged. “I thought she’d tell me to drink.”

Jaime snorted. “Who do think she’s been kissing, Podrick?”

“And you might be prompted to actually act, after all this time.”

“What?”

Tyrion turned to look up at him. “Dear brother, you really are extremely unobservant for a Lannister. You’ve been mooning after that woman like a languishing maiden since you arrived at Winterfell. I’ve never seen you look at _anyone_ the way you look at her, not even dear sister Cersei. Every time that enormous Wilding starts fucking her with his eyes, you put your hand on your sword, did you even know that?  I saw your face when you knighted her, Jaime. You gave her what she most wanted in the world and you looked as if giving _her_ what she most wanted was what _you_ most wanted. And now you’re fighting the urge to do me bodily violence – oh, yes you are, I know that look – because I hurt her feelings.”

“She deserves –”

“Lots of people deserve lots of things, and you don’t care nearly as much about them,” Tyrion said. He refilled Jaime’s goblet. “Have another drink, for courage, but just one, if you’ll take the advice of a man with far more experience than you at both wine and women.”

Jaime stared at him. “What?”

Tyrion leaned closer to him and said, very slowly and clearly, “You’re in love with her. From the way you looked at her in the Dragon Pit, you’ve been in love with her for quite a while. Go and do something about it. Do I need to use smaller words?” He drank. “Or perhaps illustrate with gestures?”

“However you think I feel about her, she feels nothing of the sort for me,” Jaime said savagely.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure, I know how a woman looks at a man she wants to bed!”

“No, you know how women who want to seduce the Golden Lion of Lannister look, and women trying to seduce the Golden Lion of Lannister aren’t scared virgins who don’t know how to flirt.” Tyrion drained his goblet. “Which, by the way, neither do you, you scared virgin.”

“I’m hardly –”

“Have you ever lain with a woman besides the one you’ve known all your life? Have you even tried to? No? Then for certain practical purposes, you’re the same as Ser Brienne. Take it from me.” Tyrion refilled his goblet, but not Jaime’s. “She loves you. I’m as certain of that as anything in this world. And you love her, that’s blindingly obvious to me and probably to everyone else in Winterfell with moderately good eyesight. So admit how you feel to yourself, and then go and admit it to her. You’ll have to make the first move, you know. Ser Brienne doesn’t know how.”

“ _I_ don’t know how,” Jaime admitted. “I’ve never …”  

“Then just grab her by the shoulders and kiss her until she understands.”

Jaime snorted. “Has that ever worked for you?”

“No, mostly because I’d need a woman to stand still and wait for me to go and find a stepladder.” Tyrion grinned. “I should invent a folding stepladder that I can carry around on my back for just such moments.”

Jaime shrugged. “I can’t. She’s … you don’t know her very well yet, Tyrion, but she’s … she’d laugh at the idea that a man like me could even …”

“There are no men like you, remember?” Tyrion said. “Only you. And if she laughs at you, it will hurt, I can assure you. I’ve had plenty of that sort of experience, too. But you know what will hurt more? Someone who _isn’t_ a hairy barbarian seeing her for what she really is and telling her before you work up the courage.” He shoved Jaime. “Go. Or I’ll go, and tell her on your behalf.”

“You wouldn’t!”

Tyrion raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t I?” He shifted his weight as if preparing to get up. “Are you quite certain?”

Jaime rose hastily to his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve changed the bit where Jaime follows Brienne, because I honestly wouldn’t have thought Tyrion would be so cruel to Brienne just for the sake of it, so I fixed it.  
> This was meant to be a short scene in which Tyrion got an explanation that made his behaviour to Brienne less out of character, but as Bronn has observed, nothing can shut Tyrion up and I am no exception to the rule.


	8. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW. In which, Jaime takes his brother's advice ... or tries to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW!

 

Jaime’s mouth was dry and his heart was hammering so hard that he wondered if he even needed to knock, if Brienne would open the door of her own accord to find out what all the commotion was.

Wondered if he _should_ knock, if he shouldn’t simply go back and tell Tyrion that she’d refused him and –

 _No_. Because for one thing, his littler brother would read the lie in his face, and even if he didn’t, it was entirely possible he’d make some remark to Brienne in the coming days that would betray to her that Jaime was not just a knight whose honour was in tatters but a coward to boot.

A coward or a wise man, one or the other.

He took a breath, took his courage in a firmer grip than he’d ever needed on the field of battle, and knocked.

Brienne opened the door and looked at him as if he was the last person she expected to see and he still hadn’t worked out anything to say and he couldn’t manage it now, not with her looking at him with traces of hurt in her beautiful eyes. All he could do for a moment was to look back at her, amazed all over again simply that she existed, this glorious, indomitable woman who had saved him and saved him and saved him again.

But he had to say something, since Brienne clearly wasn’t going to, and he opened his mouth and heard his own voice say, “You didn’t drink.” His legs, too, apparently had a mind of their own, thank the Seven, and propelled him past her and into the room.

“I didn’t drink?” Her voice was oddly quiet.

“In the game,” Jaime elaborated, setting down the goblets and the flagon he’d appropriated from the Great Hall. “You didn’t drink in the game.”

“I drank.”  

“In the game!” He sloshed wine into the goblets, spilling some. “This is Dornish.”

He could read Brienne’s expression now, and it said as clear as words _Humour the man, he’s lost his wits to the wine. “_ This is not the game. This is only drinking.”

He shrugged, and thrust a goblet at her. “Suit yourself.”

She took a drink and now he had nothing at all to say, all over again. The room was warm, her room was always warm, and perhaps it was the fire or perhaps the wine, but it was overwarm at the moment. He wrenched at the fastening of his jacket. “You keep it warm enough in here.”  

“It’s the first thing I learned when I came to the north,” Brienne said, still in that oddly quiet voice. She watched him warily and Jaime wanted to punch Tyrion all over again because it was that one cruel remark that had taken all the joy and happiness from her face and put that strange wary confusion in its place. “Keep your fire going. Every time you leave the room, put more wood on.”

He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it aside. _So now apparently we’re talking about the finer details of housekeeping in the world’s frozen armpit._ “That’s very diligent. Very responsible.”

“Piss off,” Brienne said, sounding for the first time like herself.  

“You know the first thing I learned when I came to the North?” Jaime poured himself a drink. “I hate the fucking North.” Full of dead men who could wield swords and enormous wolves and giant hairy Wildings who paid what the Wildings no doubt thought were courtesies to women they should leave well enough alone, that was the fucking North.

“It grows on you,” Brienne said.

“I don’t want things growing on me.” He didn’t want to talk about the fucking North, either. Didn’t want to think about – “How about Tormund Giantsbane? Has he grown on you? He was very sad when you left.”

Brienne’s voice was barely above a whisper. “You sound quite jealous.”

He could have said _Don’t be ridiculous._ He could have said _Jealous of that Wilding beast?_

He heard his brother’s voice. _Every time that enormous Wilding starts fucking her with his eyes, you put your hand on your sword, did you even know that?_

Jaime forced himself to meet her gaze. “I do, don’t I.” And he couldn’t tell what she thought about that, which was all the torments of all the Seven Hells, and he couldn’t look at her any more and not know what she thought about him and how she felt. “It’s bloody hot in here,” he said as conversationally as he could, tugging at the laces of his shirt as much to give himself something to do as anything else.

And then, having begun, he had to continue, and somehow the strings had got themselves knotted, and if he wasn’t quite drunk he was certainly on the way to it, and he only had the one damnable hand –

“Oh, move aside,” Brienne said after a moment, slapping his fingers away and untangling the laces herself. Her fingers brushed his neck, her hands scorched him through his shirt, and without thought, without decision, his own hand lifted to the neck of her shirt.

Brienne went still. “What are you doing?”

 _What am I doing?_ Jaime had no idea. Refusing to die without seeing her naked once more, at least once more, in his life. Wanting to feel her skin against his own, _needing_ to, needing to prove to himself that the strength and tenderness he remembered was real. “I’m taking your shirt off.”

For a second, for an hour, for a lifetime, Brienne was motionless. Then she brushed his hand aside and his heart sank to his boots.

 _I’m sorry, I –_ Gods, could he please simply die, in this second, before she said –

She replaced his one hand with both of her own, and undid her own buttons, as quickly and efficiently as Brienne did everything, letting her shirt hang open.

Jaime couldn’t take his eyes from her face. _This is real. She is real. I am here, and so is she. And she is looking at me as if –_

_As if Tyrion might be right._

Brienne tugged his shirt out of his breeches and up over his head and it was all Jaime could do to regain the presence of mind to raise his arms to co-operate. She drew his shirt off and over his metal hand without even a trace of hesitation or disgust at his mutilation. Then, just as matter-of-factly, she let her own shirt fall from her shoulders.

They had been naked to each other, long before now. He had seen more of her than the strong muscles of her torso and her small, high teats and she had seen more of him than his scarred and muscled chest. This was different, though, this wasn’t circumstance, this was _intent_ , and Jaime could read her expression at last and it was impossible to look away from her face.

“I’ve never slept with a knight before,” he said softly, to break the silence.

“I’ve never slept with anyone before.” Brienne paused, and then admitted, “I’ve never even kissed anyone before.”

“Then you have to drink,” he told her gravely. “Those are the rules.”

“I told you …” Brienne started, irritated, utterly Brienne, and he couldn’t wait and he couldn’t stop himself, all he could do was lean up and into her and capture her lips and without any hesitation she was kissing him back and his fingers were tangled in her hair and there was nothing in the world that had ever felt like this –

She moved closer to him and he stepped away, keeping the contact between them to hands and lips only, moved again when she pressed further, despite the uncomfortable heat of the fire at the back of his legs. He had no experience deflowering virgins but he was fairly certain that terrifying them with the sort of raging cockstand he was currently sporting wasn’t the best way.

Brienne leaned back a little. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t want to …”

“Brienne. Brienne.” He pressed his lips to hers again, nipped at her mouth with his teeth, soothed the sting with his tongue, and felt the sound she made all the way from the soles of his feet to his balls. “I don’t want to startle you.”

She pulled back again, breathing hard. “I think we’re beyond that, a little.”

Jaime smiled. “The thing is …” He glanced downwards involuntarily. “I’m rather …”

She followed his gaze to where the front of his breeches was doing a rather convincing impersonation of a tent that could sleep ten soldiers, and then looked back at his face, frowning. “I know how it all works, Jaime.”

“I – Brienne.”

The frown deepened. “Do you not want to?”

He couldn’t keep from laughing. “Want to? More than anything. Enough to make me mad. But, Brienne … if you want me to kiss you, and only kiss you, I will kiss you, and only that.”

She was silent a second, and then leaned forward to press her lips against his cheekbone. “And if I want more?”

“Then you will have more, just exactly as much as you want. No more.” Seven hells, he was going to fall fainting in her arms if she kept on talking to him with his lips against his skin, every tiny movement sending trails of fire across his skin.

“I’m not sure,” she confessed. “I want … more than this. But I’m not sure exactly …”

Jaime slid his hand down to the small of her back and pulled her to him. Brienne came willingly, pressed against him from knee to chest and he kissed her and teased her lips with his tongue until she opened them to him and he could taste the wine she’d drunk. Her fingers caught his hair as he’d caught hers, holding him to her, taking him, taking what she wanted eagerly and fearlessly.

He was panting by the time she let him go. “If you want me to stop. If you – just say. I will, Brienne. Nothing you don’t want.”

“Will it hurt you?” she asked, brilliant blue eyes fixed on his face. “I’ve heard that men are hurt if –”

“Heard from men,” Jaime said, grinned at her when she nodded. “I won’t pretend that I’ll be comfortable, my Brienne, but it’s hardly a mortal wound.”

“Then I want to lie down with you,” Brienne said firmly. “And I want you to hold me like that again, and kiss me. And … I’m not sure what more, but definitely more.”  

Jaime kissed her again, pressing her back toward the bed until the backs of her knees were against it. “I’d also like to take your breeches off.”

“I’d like to take yours off,” Brienne said. “And given how bloody useless you are with your clothes, I’d better do us both.”

Without more ceremony, she sat down on the bed and unfastened Jaime’s belt. Silently, he trod out of one boot and then the other, and let Brienne draw his breeches down and then off. He was as naked before her as he’d been in the bath in Harrenhal.

He thought she’d strip herself next, but she raised her hand and touched his cock instead, one tentative stroke that drew a groan from him.

“I’m sorry,” she said immediately. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Jaime assured her. “That was not pain, I promise you.”

She raised her gaze to his, eyebrows up. “Did you like it?”

“Very much.”

“Would you like me to do it again?”

“If you do that too many more times, you will finish me before we begin.” Jaime took her hand in his, laced his fingers through hers. “Your breeches.”

Brienne laughed, gloriously, glowing as if the sun itself was captured behind her skin, and stood up, shucking her breeches in one quick movement, shedding her boots as well as she reached her ankles. “There. Now what?”

Jaime smiled. “You command _me_. Milady.”

Her smile died away. “No. Not here. Not … like this.  Not when we’re like this.”

And that was unbearable, to see her smile fade, and so Jaime leaned down and kissed her and pressed her back onto the bed and bore her down with his weight and then lowered his head and pressed his lips lightly to her neck and blew, making a sound like flatulence.

Brienne gave a great hoot of laughter, her arms tight around him. “What are you doing?”

“Making you laugh.” He did it again.

“I thought you were supposed to be seducing me.”

Jaime raised himself on his elbows. “No, you’re the one seducing _me_.” He raised an eyebrow. “You took my shirt off. You took your own shirt off. And both our breeches.”

Brienne gave a huff of breath. “If I waited for you to get either of our clothes off I’d be old and grey before we were done.”

“I’d wait. In this room. Patiently. To lie with you, like this.”

Brienne snorted. “You wouldn’t.”

“No,” Jaime admitted. “I’d summon Podrick.” And she was smiling again, so he leaned down and found her mouth. He leaned his weight on her because she could easily bear it and the arms around him were strong and firm and he felt a sense of triumph that dwarfed any victory won with his sword when she moaned against his mouth.    

She pulled away, cheeks scalding scarlet. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Jaime demanded. “Did that feel good?” Still blushing, she nodded. “Then thank you for letting me know. I’d be grateful if you’d continue to let me know.” He traced a trail from her collarbone to her ear, and whispered, “Because I will certainly let _you_ know.”  

“I don’t know how to … I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you want to do?”

“To touch you,” she whispered.  

“Then do so.”

Her hands skimmed up his sides, down again, settled on his hips. “Is that alright?”

“Anything you want is alright.”

She snorted. “Tell me the truth.”

“I am. I promise you, I am.” Her fingers tightened, digging in the muscles of his arse, and he pushed forward against her without meaning to. “I like that. Can you tell?”

She smiled, a smile he’d never seen from her, not even in the warmth and relaxation of the Great Hall, and drew him against her again, arching her back to increase the contact. “It feels like you like it.”

“You have the advantage,” Jaime whispered. “I would need to touch you far more intimately  to know the same about you.”

“How intimately?” she whispered back.

Jaime raised himself on his right elbow and ran his left hand along Brienne’s flank and to her hip. “May I show you?”

“Yes,” she gasped, and Jaime slid his fingers across her thigh and into the warmth between her legs, tracing through the thick curls there and swallowing the whimper of pleasure she gave with his mouth fastened over hers.

“Oh Jaime, oh, Jaime,” she murmured when he raised his head. “That’s – please – that’s –”

He stroked her again. “Good?”

“Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes …” She said it again, and again, until her voice rose on the cry and then she was arching and shaking against him, holding him hard enough to bruise, sobbing her pleasure against his lips.

He held her through it, held her as she eased into limp relaxation. “Good?”

“Yes,” she mumbled. “Gods, yes.”

He rolled over and gathered her to him, and exulted as she melted bonelessly against his side.

After a moment she raised her head. “What next? Would you like to be inside me?”

“More than anything,” he said hoarsely. “But I won’t take your maidenhead.”

“Oh, fuck my maidenhead,” Brienne said. She rose to her knees and then straddled him. “Anyone who thinks I can be dishonoured by an honourable man’s cock is an idiot. But you’ll have to show me how to go about it.”

“It might hurt,” Jaime warned her. “The first time.”

She paused. “On a scale of one to being-mauled-by-a-bear, how badly will it hurt?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I doubt as much as a bear.”

“Then go on.”

Jaime fit them together and nudged himself into her a little. “Lower yourself. That’s – gods – like that.”

It was sweet torture as Brienne eased herself down, inch by wonderful inch, until at last he was completely sheathed in her. Jaime gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to roll them both over and drive himself into her, again and again.

“Are you alright?” Brienne asked. “You look quite strange.”

“That’s because I’m bloody marvellously alright. Are you?”

She nodded. “It feels lovely. When does it hurt?”

“If it was going to hurt you, it would have already, I’m fairly sure.”

Brienne rocked a little, her expression thoughtful. “ _Fairly_ sure?”

“I’ve only heard about it,” he gasped. “Please do that again. _Please_.”

 She did, setting up a gentle rhythm that bid fair to drive him to madness in short order.  He gave in to the instinct to grasp her hips so he could thrust up to meet her –

And she flinched as his gold right hand touched her.   

 _Gods, you fool_. She made him feel so whole that for a moment he had forgotten that he wasn’t, and would never be again. He took the ugly thing away from her, put his arm out to the side so it would be as far away from her as possible. “I’m sorry. I –”

“It was cold, that’s all.” Brienne sounded suddenly fierce. “Give it here.”

Slowly, Jaime held his false hand out to her. He expected her to warm it between her own, but instead her clever fingers worked quickly at the buckles and in a moment had the gold hand free and his stump exposed. “That’s better,” she said. She set the hand aside, and leaned forward. “If I sit like this, you can probably get your arm further around my waist, for leverage. I assume that’s what you wanted?”

“But that would … I would …”

Brienne’s expression softened. She took his right wrist in both her hands and kissed his scar, and then drew his arm around her. “There.” She began to move again. “Am I doing this right?”

“Gods, yes!” And now he could match her rhythm, surging up to meet her, burying himself in her as deeply as he could, and he wanted it to last forever but the heat and urgency was building far too quickly inside him. “Stop,” he groaned, the very last word he wanted to say but utterly necessary.

Brienne went still. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No. Perfectly right. But I can’t – I’m going to spend. You have to get off me.”

She frowned. “Why?”

Jaime gaped up at her. “Because there could be a child!”

Brienne snorted. “I know how babies are made, Jaime. And I know there’s a tea for it, if needed. Will it feel better for you, finishing inside me?”

Perhaps the honourable thing would have been to lie to her, say _no_ and prevent even the risk of a child, but he couldn’t bring himself to be dishonest with her, least of all here, least of all now. “Yes.”

“And do you want to?”

“Yes!”

Brienne began to move again and he held to her and moved with her as the world narrowed to the fire inside him and her brilliant blue eyes gazing down at him and the silken warmth of her and then she leaned forward and kissed him and the ecstasy of release took him.

She rolled them over and held him as he’d held her, one strong arm around his shoulders and her other hand gentle on his hair. “Are you alright?”

Jaime buried his face against her neck. “Yes.” His voice was unexpectedly unsteady and there was a hot burning in his eyes and a soreness in his throat. From second to second he was floating in the most perfect peace he had ever known and then falling helplessly through nothingness.

“Are you crying because I did it wrong?” Brienne asked, and Seven Hells he hated the tentativeness in her voice and hated himself for putting it there.

“I’m not crying.”

“You’re getting my neck wet.”

“I’m happy. And terrified. Are you terrified?” He shifted a little, trying to get as close to her as possible.

“No,” Brienne said softly, threading her fingers through his hair. “I was earlier, though. I was absolutely panic-stricken when you started taking off my shirt.”

The feeling of falling began to recede a little, and with it, the hot lump in his throat. “You didn’t seem to be. You were quite decisive.”

“It was the look on your face when I stopped you.”  Jaime could hear a smile in her voice. “You looked quite sad.”

He chuckled, and she shivered. “Are you cold?”

“No, your beard tickles.”

Jaime raised his head. “You’re ticklish?”

“No, it’s just –”

But she was looking away as she spoke and Jaime grinned. “You are!”  

“If you tickle me, I will …” She narrowed her eyes. “Tickle you back.”

“I’m _not_ ticklish,” Jaime said smugly.

“I’ll think of something.” She drew him back down to her. “So what do we do now?”

Jaime smiled against her neck. “Whatever you want.”

“Don’t you need to rest? I’ve heard that men need to rest, after.”

“Not being a green youth, yes, I’ll need a little time, and hopefully I’ll last a little longer than a green youth next time. But you, Brienne, being both a knight and a woman, have an advantage over me.” Jaime raised himself on his elbow and looked down at her. “And I intend to take full advantage of that advantage.”

Brienne frowned a little. “I’m not really sure what to tell you I want. You choose something.”

“Let’s try … _this_ ,” he said, and slid down the bed.

 

   


	9. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sansa is still the cleverest person Arya has ever known, but is missing one crucial piece of information.

 

Sansa had stayed late at the feast, watching and listening as wine loosened men’s tongues. She’d seen Brienne laughing and joking with the Lannister brothers and her squire, and been glad for her loyal knight’s happiness. And she’d seen Brienne stalk out, face once again a mask, and Lord Tyrion and Ser Jaime arguing afterwards.

No point talking to them when they were drunk, but once they’d sobered up … Sansa thought it might be helpful to remind them how very important Brienne was to her and how very important Sansa’s help was going to be with their cut-throat sellsword problem.

She had almost finished breaking her fast the next morning when Jaime Lannister put in an appearance. He was still in the clothes he’d worn the night before and Sansa wondered which corridor he’d passed out in. As he settled himself on a bench and reached for the nearest dish, she rose to her feet and made her way over to him.

“Ser Jaime.”

It was as much a lifetime of court manners that made him rise to his feet as any genuine respect, she was sure. “Lady Sansa.”

“Please, go on with your meal.” She seated herself beside him, but facing out into the hall. “I want to speak to you about Ser Brienne.”

Ser Jaime choked on a mouthful of porridge, coughed, and took a long drink from the nearest cup. “Ser Brienne?”

“She was the first person to swear to serve me,” Sansa said. “She has been at my side, keeping me safe, fighting for me, protecting me, advising me, every day since then.”

“I know,” Ser Jaime said.

“Outside of my family, she is the person I most trust and value in this world,” Sansa said, making her voice very cool and clear. “Do you understand that, Ser Jaime?”

“I do.” He turned to look at her, and then hastily glanced away, clearly aware of how displeased she was at Brienne’s distress. _Good._

“And anyone seeking my good opinion, let alone my _help_ , should value and respect her as well.” She didn’t need to add _or suffer the consequences_. They could both hear the words, hanging unspoken in the air.

Ser Jaime cleared his throat again. “Lady Sansa. I assure you, I value and respect Ser Brienne. I hold her in the highest esteem.”

“And last night was an example of how you treat a knight and a lady whom you value, respect, and hold in highest esteem?” Sansa asked, not needing any effort to make her voice cold.

Ser Jaime went quite red. “I … Lady Sansa, I …”

It was quite entertaining to watch one of the clever, witty Lannisters reduced to a blushing, stammering idiot. “I don’t need to know the details –”

“Oh, thank the Seven,” he said fervently.

“But if you cause her distress, Ser Jaime, I will be _unhappy_.”

“I would do anything to prevent it,” he said earnestly, and this time he managed to meet her gaze. Sincerity was not an expression Sansa was used to seeing on Lannisters, so she couldn’t be sure, but he seemed to mean it.

“Good. And where is Ser Brienne this morning?”

His face scalded again. “I … don’t know?”

_He should be mortified, to have to admit that._ “Her safety is your first concern, at all times. You should always know where she is, you should always know she is safe and guarded, Ser Jaime.”

He raised an eyebrow. “She does rather better guarding herself than I’d manage, you know.”

“Has she eaten? Has her squire attended her? Does she have tasks for you? These are things you should _know_ , Ser Jaime. You have assumed certain responsibilities. Are you reluctant to fulfil them?”

“Of course not!” He bolted one last spoonful and rose to his feet. “Excuse me, my Lady. I’ll take your advice.”

Sansa was pleased to see that he departed the hall at a rapid pace.  

“My Lady?” a soft voice said, and Sansa turned to see Varys regarding her. He held out a piece of parchment. “Lord Tyrion asked that you be given this.”

Sansa took it. “Have you read it?”

He inclined his head slightly. “Of course. It was my little birds who fetched the information Lord Tyrion sought. I estimate it’s a day’s travel, at least.” He paused. “If I might offer you some advice …?”

“You may always _offer_ ,” Sansa said.

“Do not negotiate by letter, my Lady. I know two days is too long for you to be away from Winterfell at this time, so take the risk of calling him closer.”

“Closer to the men he wishes to kill.”

Varys gave a tiny smile. “I have as much to lose as anyone if harm comes to … well, to Lord Tyrion, at least. But I assure you, Ser Bronn does not wish to kill them. If he did, he would never have written to Lord Tyrion.”

Sansa raised her eyebrows. “A sense of honour might propel a man to give fair warning.”

“There is not an ounce of honour in Ser Bronn of the Blackwater,” Varys said. “Believe me. He is motivated entirely by the desire for wealth, position, and a comfortable retirement. It makes him refreshingly easy to predict.”

Sansa paused, and then inclined her head. “I will consider your advice. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Varys said, bowed, and took his leave.

And there, behind him, was Brienne. “Lady Sansa.”

“Ser Brienne. Are you well, this morning?”

 “Quite well, milady.”

“Walk with me,” Sansa said, and led the way out of the Great Hall.

The courtyard was less perilous than it had been, almost all the rubble cleared and a fresh dusting of snow covering most of the ice. The walls would take longer, but the battlement above the gate was clear, and sound, and Sansa climbed the stairs to it.  

For a moment she stood, silently enjoying the knowledge that her home was safe, and she was in it, and that she was the equal of any challenge ahead of her. Brienne knew her well enough, after all this time, to read her mood and stand quietly beside her until Sansa let the moment pass and turned to look up her knight. “Has Ser Jaime seen to you this morning?”

Brienne’s mouth fell open and she turned pink. “Milady?”

“Seen to your needs,” Sansa elaborated. “I saw him in the Great Hall and he didn’t seem to have given the slightest thought to your welfare.”

“I – I assure you, milady, he, ah – that was not at all the case.” Brienne was blushing bright red, as scarlet as Ser Jaime had been in the Great Hall –

_Oh_.

Well, she had known how Brienne felt about Jaime Lannister, and she had seen his face when Brienne spoke up for him in the Great Hall. Gratitude and admiration, she had thought at the time, and a humility somehow shocking on a Lannister face. But perhaps there had been something more, an expression she had little experience at reading, written on his features as well.

“I don’t mean to pry,” Sansa said gently. “But are you happy?”

Brienne nodded vigorously. “Very, milady.”

“And does he – is he gentle? Is he kind?”

Brienne’s expression softened. “Very, milady. He … he is everything you deserve to have known.”

_Instead of Ramsay Bolton._ Sansa turned away. “Perhaps I will, one day.”

“I hope so,” Brienne said quietly. “Is it – is it alright? I mean, do you object? I know you allowed him to stay and fight, but this is … different.”

“If he makes you happy, and treats you well, I don’t object.” Sansa put out her hands and touched the stones of the wall. “He fought to save my home. He fought to save my finest knight. That is worth something.”

Over the next few days, Sansa watched Brienne carefully, and Jaime Lannister as well. They were very proper with each other in public, all _Ser Brienne_ and _Ser Jaime_ and slight bows, but an inquiry about the number of spare cots in the barracks revealed Ser Jaime no longer slept there and Podrick Payne’s evasive answer when she questioned him made Sansa certain that was not because he’d found his own quarters. Once she saw Brienne and Ser Jaime on the battlements, and although they stood a decorous distance apart they looked at each other in a way that was almost as indecent as if they’d been naked and embracing. There was a new lightness to Ser Jaime, an air of quiet contentment around Brienne. Her smile, once so rare, was seen at least daily, and Ser Jaime walked with a spring in his step as if he were a much younger man.

Once she overheard Tyrion, in between guffaws, saying something about _hot in here_ and _take off all our clothes_ and _can’t believe it worked_ , and wondered, just for a moment, if a man who was gentle and kind and looked at her as if she was the earthly manifestation of all the gods, old and new, would ever come to _her_ chamber and try what was obviously a very effective seduction strategy.

So when Varys came to tell her that Ser Bronn of the Blackwater was at the inn in the village below Winterfell, Sansa ordered Brienne to take Ser Jaime and check on the welfare of the woodcutters who lived in exactly the opposite direction, collected Arya, and went to negotiate.     

 


	10. Arya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The scariest Starks ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big departure from how it went down in 8.04, but I already had this bit written and I liked it, so …

 

Arya stood motionless by the door. She knew it unnerved people – Sansa, among others, had told her so – and she was quite happy for Ser Bronn of the Blackwater to be unnerved. She could tell it was working from the little glances he kept shooting her way. He was good, she could tell from the way he’d moved after they’d come in and from the way he sat down. Good, but no longer young.

And even on his best day, not Arya Stark.

He was a scarred, dangerous looking man, but Arya knew it had been a long time since Sansa Stark could be frightened and even then, it had been by a man more dangerous than Ser Bronn could conceive of being. Sansa looked down at him. “You will not kill either of the Lannister brothers.”

“The Queen’s promised me Riverrun,” Bronn said.  

Sansa snorted slightly. “That’s a promise she won’t be able to fulfil.”

“I guessed that the second I saw those fucking dragons.” Bronn leaned back, laced his hands behind his head, and put his boots up on the table. “You know that saying, the Lannisters always pay their debts? It’s shit. Not one single Lannister has ever paid their fucking debt to me.”

“I’m not a Lannister.” Sansa pulled the chair opposite him out from the table and sat down. “Ask the Freys about the Starks and their debts. And if you kill either of the Lannister brothers, that’s a problem for me. And for Daenerys Targaryen, the Dragon Queen. I wish you luck, Ser Bronn of the Blackwater, outriding a dragon down the King’s Road.”

“One of those Lannister brothers killed your dragon bitch’s father.”

“And the other is her Hand.” Sansa’s voice was expressionless. “And he’s very fond of his older brother.”

“He’s always been sentimental,” Bronn agreed. “So you’ve bent the knee to the Dragon Queen, then? Giving up what’s yours to protect what’s hers?”

“Giving up what’s mine to a man who’ll owe me for it, and hold it, to protect the least objectionable of my former husbands.”

Bronn snorted. “In my experience, former wives would rather pay a castle to have their former husbands murdered than to save them.”

“I suspect I’m rather comprehensively outside your experience,” Sansa said. She ran her finger across the table, and then frowned at the dust on it. “Here’s my proposal. Do nothing. Yet. There is a war coming. At the end of it, if Cersei is victorious, by all means kill whoever of us you want who is still alive. It will be a quicker death than any she’d give us, that’s certain.”

“And if she isn’t?”

“Kill no-one, and become Lord of the Twins. You know the Twins?”

“I do. They’re cursed.”

“They’re only cursed when the Lord who holds them opposes the Starks.”

Bronn threw back his head and laughed. “That’s a nice line. But whatever fever took the Freys is not under your – admittedly impressive – command.”

“It wasn’t fever,” Sansa said coldly. “Hold the Twins, stay loyal to our family, and you’ll die old and rich.”

“And what if you lose? What do I say when Queen Cersei asks me what I’ve been doing all this time as her brothers march south to murder her?”

“It’s not murder when it’s deserved.”

“Many men have argued that, and many men have hanged anyway. What do you suggest I say to save _my_ life?”

Sansa shrugged. “She’s not here. She doesn’t know where _you_ are, or what you’re doing, or how hard you try to reach them. All you have to do is ride slowly.”

Bronn sucked his teeth, studying her. “That’s my favourite way to ride, as it happens.”   

Sansa gave a small smile. “Then you’re in luck.”

“I don’t understand, Lady Stark. You’re a Stark of Winterfell, and you want to save the last two male members of the House that killed half your family.”

“You don’t need to understand,” Sansa said. “You just need to agree.”

“And if I don’t?”

Sansa glanced at Arya. “Then you’ll die. Lord Tyrion has argued for your life, which is why I’m here giving you the option of accepting a very nice castle instead of dying in this rather unclean room.”  

“You going to stick a knife in me here and now?” Bronn scoffed, and then rolled off his chair and came up with a knife in his hand, staring at the dagger stuck in the tabletop, still vibrating slightly.

“She isn’t,” Arya said. “I am. I have five more of those, and I can put all of them in a space smaller than the pupil of your eye before you could get out from behind that table.”

“You’ve heard that the war against the dead was won?” Sansa asked. Bronn nodded slowly. “Have you heard how?”

“You’re her.” He lowered his knife, staring at Arya.

“I’m her,” Arya agreed. “I killed the King of the Dead. Fancy your chances?”

Bronn tossed the knife onto the table and raised his hands a little. “I’ll take the castle.”

“Wise,” Sansa said, and rose to her feet.   

 


	11. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, a short road trip.

 

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Jaime said for the seventh or eighth time. “Shouldn’t we head back to Winterfell so you can protect Lady Sansa?”

“Lady Sansa has assured me she’ll be with Arya the entire time,” Brienne said. “And this errand is on her order.”

Jaime tightened his legs on his horse and urged it forward a little, beside Brienne’s. “Why do you call her Arya?”

Brienne shot him a forbidding glance. “It’s her name.”

“Why not Lady Arya?”

“She doesn’t like it,” Podrick supplied from behind them.

Jaime chuckled. “And she’s not a woman to irritate.”

“Neither am I,” Brienne said. “So stop complaining and ride.”

He was tempted to needle her a little more, for old time’s sake, but Jaime knew her foul temper was due entirely to the fact that she wanted, more than anything, to take his suggestion and ride posthaste back Lady Sansa’s side. He let his mount slow a little and rode beside Podrick, instead.

“Tell me something, Podrick,” Jaime said. “Why does my brother call you ‘Ser Podrick of the magic cock’?”

Brienne turned in the saddle to glare at both of them and Podrick blushed crimson to his ears.  “It’s, uh, not that interesting a story, Ser Jaime.”

“It sounds like an absolutely fascinating story to me,” Jaime said, and when Brienne gave them another glare he answered it with a blithe smile. “Did you slay a dragon with it?”

“No, ser.” If it was possible for a man to combust from embarrassment, Podrick was in danger of doing so. “It’s not, um. Appropriate to talk about.”

“If it’s not appropriate to talk about, and it’s a story my brother knows, it involves whores.” Jaime glanced at Podrick. “I see I’m right. You should tell me, you know. If you want me to stop asking.”

“Lord Tyrion paid for me at Lord Baelish’s brothel,” Podrick said all on one breath, sucked in another and on that one, “But the girls didn’t want the money, after.”

“That’s not a suitable subject for conversation, Podrick,” Brienne called over her shoulder.

“But he asked!”

“That’s no excuse.”

“Is that common, whores not wanting to be paid?” Jaime asked idly.

“It has been for me, my lord, but Lord Tyrion was quite surprised.” Podrick glanced at him. “Although I imagine in your case they … ah …”

“I wouldn’t know,” Jaime said, amused. _Gods, he imagines he’s hurt my vanity._  “I’ve never been to a whorehouse. Well. I’ve been to a whorehouse on more than one occasion, usually to retrieve my brother, but never as a customer.”

Brienne turned in the saddle again, eyebrows knit together in a scowl. “Will you please stop talking about whorehouses?”

Jaime let the reins lie slack on his horse’s neck and held up his hands. “I was just saying that I’ve never frequented them.”

“Well, don’t.” Brienne faced forward again.

“I’ve no plans to start, either.”

“Will you shut up about whorehouses!”

“I see chimney smoke,” Podrick said quickly.

“See, I told you, they’re fine,” Jaime said.

The woodcutters _were_ fine. They were pleased to see the three of them, tangible evidence that the Lady of Winterfell was concerned for their welfare. They offered food, and ale, and if he’d been alone Jaime would happily have accepted both and stayed a little longer in the warmth, but Brienne was casting glances at the door and so he regretfully declined and they started back towards the castle.

They’d ridden in silence for several minutes when Brienne abruptly reined her horse in and waited for Jaime to come abreast. “They offered _you_ something to eat and drink, but not me.”

He frowned at her in surprise. “They offered all of us, they just addressed it to me.”

She pressed her lips together, and said darkly, “Because you’re a man.”

Jaime laughed, nudging his horse closer to hers until his knee brushed hers. “Gods, no, is that what’s bothering you? Do you not remember what you said when we went in? ‘I am Lady Brienne, Lady Sansa’s sworn sword. This is my sworn sword, Ser Jaime, and Podrick’.”  

“I didn’t want to have a long conversation about women being knights. And I didn’t want  them to recognise you and not know you were –”

“I know.” Jaime reached across and put his good left hand over hers for a moment. “You didn’t want them to get the idea there might be a bounty on my head and try to knife me for it, and I thank you. But these are simple people, Brienne, or at least, they’re probably as complex as anyone else but they lead simple lives. They spoke to me, as a man _serving you_ , because they were nervous about talking directly to Lady Brienne.”

She scowled at him suspiciously. “Are you sure?”

“I tell you what, next woodcutters or charcoal burners or stonemasons we visit, I’ll introduce myself as Lord Jaime and you as Ser Brienne and I wager you I’ll be the one getting the silent stares and you’ll be the one they speak to.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Brienne said after a minute. “I think it’s because you’re better at it than me.”

“I honestly can’t think what you could mean. There is not a single thing that comes to mind that I am better at than you. You ride better than I do, you fight better than I do, you certainly cut up your meat better than I do –”

“You’re better with people.”

“I’m not, you know. I’ve just had more practice at being shallow and charming.”

“You’re not particularly charming,” Brienne said sourly.

Jaime chuckled. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s come to an agreement about a fair distribution of labours that matches our strengths. I’ll be shallow and charming when shallow charm is required, and you can do everything else.”  

She eyed him. “How is that fair?”

“Being as charming as I am is very tiring. Positively exhausting.” He lowered his voice. “If you want me to have any strength left at the end of the day –”

Brienne went scarlet. “Jaime!”

“Otherwise I might just fall asleep before –”

“Not in front of Podrick!” Brienne hissed. “You’ll set a bad example.”

A bubble of mirth erupted from him in a laugh that rang across the frozen field. “A bad example to Ser Podrick of the magic cock? The lad who squired for _my brother_? Have you _met_ Tyrion, or only seen him from afar?”

“You know I’ve met him,” Brienne said. “And it’s taken me years to break Podrick of the bad habits Lord Tyrion led him into. I don’t want you teaching him new ones.” She gave him a sideways glance. “If you’re really finding the work too much, I can reduce your duties.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re too thin, you know,” she burst out. “You’ve gotten too thin.”

There was real concern in her brilliant blue eyes and Jaime had to swallow hard past the sudden lump in his throat. _How long has it been since anyone cared if I was too thin, or not?_ “I’ll eat more.”

“Good,” Brienne said fiercely, and sniffed as if there might be a lump in her own throat.

 _Podrick be damned._ He leaned across the distance between them, took her chin between his fingers and kissed her until they were both breathless and he realised that behind them, Podrick had spent so long riding while staring at the sky he’d gone fifty yards in completely the wrong direction.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst incoming in future chapters!


	12. Brienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW-ish. Things go well, until they don't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some angst. Some smut. Some more angst.

Days and nights of Jaime, by her side during the day, in her bed – _their_ bed – at night. Days of learning how if felt to be teased with affection, learning exactly how he sparred left-handed, learning how he looked at dawn and dusk and every hour in between. Nights that were sometimes playful and sometimes tender and always ended with her drifting to sleep, feeling his warmth by her side.

It was more wonderful than Brienne had ever allowed herself to hope for. Not perfect, of course. There were nights she woke to find the bed cold and Jaime staring into the fire, lost in thoughts he wouldn’t share when she asked, or when he made love to her with an urgency that seemed as much fear as passion. There were things she wanted to know, to understand, but didn’t know how to ask, and there were things she was content to leave half-acknowledged but wondered sometimes if he longed to talk about.

Cersei was at the centre of all of those questions, all those hazardous matters that lay between them like logs half-submerged in a flooded river. Jaime had not gone back to her, he had not gone south at all, to fight either for or against her, and Brienne was glad, every moment, that he was here in Winterfell, with her, every day and every night.  

_But …_

But still the silences, at times, his gaze on the fire or the ceiling but seeing, she knew, something very far away. Still the times she surprised something like grief on his face, before he arranged it into a charming smile.

Still Cersei.

 _It will end when she dies_ , Brienne told herself. Oh, there might have been talk of letting her live, at least for the sake of her child – and that Jaime had been in his sister’s bed recently enough for the child to be his was knowledge Brienne couldn’t look at directly – but Lady Sansa was of the view that Queen Cersei would never allow herself be taken alive, and Lady Sansa’s opinions were to be taken very seriously indeed.

Brienne didn’t share that opinion with Jaime, of course, because she kept her lady’s counsel, and she carefully didn’t think about the fact that she wouldn’t have shared it with him even if she could. If he needed to believe his sister, his lover, his twin and second self, would survive, she would let him.

_When she dies, he will finally be free of her._

In the meantime, Brienne used her trust and her confidence in him each day to tell Jaime that she knew he was good, and honourable, and true. At night, she used her body and her hands and her mouth to show him that he was loved and desired, that he deserved to be loved, that he deserved gentleness and tenderness and care.

When the news came that Cersei was dead, Jaime would grieve, Brienne knew.

 _Grieve, and then heal_.

And in the meantime, it was wonderful. Jaime took his turn on night watch for a week and woke her every morning at dawn, diving into bed beside her and burrowing his icy feet beneath her calves until she woke up enough to roll over and drape herself across him until his shivering stopped. Some evenings, he read to her, from one of his brother’s books: strange books full of histories Brienne had never heard of, given life by the sarcastic lift and fall of Jaime’s voice. Some evenings, she read to him, from the discourses on military strategy she’d found in the castle library, while he ran his fingers through her hair, again and again, murmuring ironic commentary on what she read. Sometimes, they held to each other beneath the furs and shared fragments of their pasts. _You were too beautiful, like the men who made a game of me,_ Brienne whispered to him, and Jaime smiled, and put his lips to her ear. _You were too honourable, like all the things I was ashamed of no longer being._

Brienne began to believe that it would last, that there might always be the shadows and the hidden pitfalls between them, but that despite that, there might also be months and years and longer ahead of Ser Jaime Lannister in her bed, murmuring nonsense about how often he’d been hard for her since he’d first seen her naked and how she tasted of honey and how her legs were made for a man to lose his mind between. Years and longer for them to learn how to share a bed without waking suddenly at any movement, years and longer in which she might not just fall asleep wrapped in Jaime’s arms but wake there, too. Years of him running his fingers through her short hair and gazing at her as if she were beautiful, touching her as if she might break, and years of him knotting his fingers in her hair and tilting her head so he could plunder her mouth with passionate kisses.

And then the raven came. A raven from the south, and Jaime asked what it said, and Brienne answered him, watching the dawning horror on his face. From a very long way away she heard Lady Sansa, heard the word _execute_ , saw Jaime hear it as well.

He gave her the briefest nod, and turned away.

When he came to their room late that night, after being absent from dinner and for most of the evening, Brienne would have tried to lie to him, to tell him there was still a chance Cersei might be spared, but she was a woeful liar and it would have been a woeful lie. A dragon dead, and her beloved advisor taken captive – the Mother of Dragons had lost a child and her closest friend at Cersei’s hand. Lady Sansa worried that Queen Daenerys might have inherited more than her name from her father.  Even if she hadn’t, Brienne had been in the Stark encampment when Lord Karstark had discovered that Jaime had killed his son. It didn’t need some hereditary madness to bend a parent’s mind to vengeance at such a moment.

He closed the door and stood, looking at her as she sat reading by the fire.

“Jaime,” she said softly, letting the book fall. _I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t understand it and I hate it but I know you loved her._

Slowly, he raised his head. “I’m sorry.”

Brienne swallowed hard. “For what?”

“I should have come back hours ago. I was trying to …” He shrugged. “Clear my head.”

“It’s alright.” She wanted to go to him or hold out her arms to him but she was afraid to, as if he were some half-wild creature who would startle into flight. “Have you eaten?”

“No.”

“Shall I fetch you something?”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “That’s my job, milady.”

“I don’t mind.”

The trace of a smile faded from his lips. “May I stay?”

“Of course you can stay! Why would you think you couldn’t?”

“I haven’t behaved particularly well today. I’m not used to –” He gestured at her, at the fire, the room. “This. And it occurred to me, while I was sulking on the walls like a boy of thirteen denied a sweetmeat, that if I were knowing you were somewhere feeling … feeling how I was feeling, and knowing you would rather not be near me at such a time, I would be in agony.”

“Jaime. It’s alright.” Brienne sat quite still. “Would you like to come here?”

“Yes,” he said abruptly, and in three strides he was across the room and kneeling beside her, clinging to her as if he was falling from a cliff and she was all the hope he had.

She wrapped her arms around him and held him to her, and he laid his head in her lap, and they sat that way for a long time.

Finally he raised his head. “Take me to bed, Brienne.”

He made love to her so slowly that she began to wonder if it was possible to die from frustration and impatience and the warmth building within her, kissing and caressing every inch of her body: each finger, each toe, the soft skin beneath her ears, the lines that years of squinting against the sun had left at the corners of her eyes. All the while, his voice vibrating against her skin, he told her exactly what he liked about each and every place he kissed, most of them absurd nonsense. Her large palms, according to Jaime, were perfect for fetching enough wood for the fire in one trip; her square-tipped fingers meant she’d live a long life. The fact that her second toe was longer than her big toe was a sign of her intelligence. The skin on the inside of her thigh was as soft as Myrish silk.  

“Please,” she begged him at last. “Please, Jaime. I need you. Now!”

He relented, joined them, and slid home into her with one hard thrust. “Like that?”

“Gods, yes.” Brienne pulled him closer. “More. More.”

 Jaime chuckled a little, his gaze steady on hers. “Wanton woman.”

“Only for you.”

He leaned down to kiss her. “I know, I know, I know,” he said against her mouth, driving into her with each repetition. “I know, I know, I know.”

Bliss crashed over her, a powerful wave that made her thrash beneath him and cry out against his mouth, and then, while her head was still spinning, again, and again after that, until she was clinging to him and sobbing her pleasure against his shoulder. He cried her name and she felt him shudder and spend inside her and then he collapsed down onto her as if he’d lost the strength to hold himself up.

And wept, not the few tears she’d felt him shed the first night he’d come to her room but sobs that shook him head to foot. She would have minded that, still inside her, Jaime grieved for the sister who had warped his life, but there was no room to feel anything other than the aching need to comfort him. Brienne wrapped her arms around him and stroked his hair and murmured the useless nonsense of _it’s alright, it’s alright, I’m here, Jaime, I’m here_ and he clung to her and slowly, slowly, eased into silence.

She held him as he slid into sleep, praying to all the Seven that the end would come soon.


	13. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, the scene that made us all sad/angry/desperately write fanfiction. Lots of angst. For here on, many chapters of angst!

 

Jaime nearly didn’t have the strength to do it.

He managed to rise from their bed – _her bed_ , he told himself savagely. _Her bed_.

Rise, and dress – and then instead of opening the door he sat down by the fire, stoking it, to keep the room warm. Brienne was sprawled beneath the furs but Winterfell nights were cold and she’d wake stiff and sore without the fire’s warmth.

Only knowing what lay ahead for him, and worse, for her, enabled him to find the strength to stand, and make his way out to the stables, and find the saddle for his horse.

But that hesitation had been his undoing – or perhaps she always would have woken, it’s hard to steal a march on Brienne of Tarth – and she was there, in the courtyard, looking at him with her beautiful blue eyes. Jaime kept his eyes on the saddlebags he was fastening. _If I pretend she isn’t there, isn’t awake, is still sprawled in post-coital languor beneath the furs of half-a-dozen beasts …_

“They’re going to destroy that city. You know they will.”

Part of him, most of him if he was honest, wanted to turn, and nod, and agree with the fantasy she’s built, the dream that Sansa Stark’s words had told him she shared. _Yes. They will destroy the city. Cersei’s defeat is guaranteed._ Such faith, in the Starks, in their choice of allies. Perhaps Brienne, at least, only pretended it, to make him think there’s no need for him to go.

Either way, she was wrong. The first engagement, and half Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons gone and most of her fleet. They’re not going to destroy the city, they’re going to fail and then his sister will have no distractions from sending assassins against him, against Tyrion – against anyone whose death would hurt them.

He cleared his throat. “Have you ever run away from a fight?”

Brienne stepped forward and took his face between her hands. “You’re not like your sister. You’re not. You’re better than she is.” His lips parted, and then she said, “You’re a good man and you can’t save her.”

Jaime felt as if she’d thrust Oathkeeper into his gut. _Save her. She thinks …_

_She thinks I’m a man who’d fight for Cersei, after all this. After Cersei betrayed the living for her own advantage, gambled the lives of every man, woman and child in Westeros and perhaps beyond – for her own power._

_That’s the sort of man Brienne thinks I am._

He couldn’t meet her gaze, not knowing the doubt of him in her words would be mirrored in those gorgeous blue eyes.

“You don’t need to die with her. Stay here. Stay with me. Please. Stay.”

Why should Brienne think anything else of him? _A good man_ , she said, but she didn’t believe it.  Why would she believe it? Was there anything in his life that would make her believe it?

Cersei has been his twin, his other self, for all his life, but since the day he met her, Brienne has been his mirror. For all these years, the way she’s seen him has been a reflection of the man he wanted to be, and, he had just begun to believe, the man he could be.

He raised his head and met her gaze and saw, mirrored in her tear-filled eyes, the man she saw, the man he was. Something tightened within him. “You think I’m a good man?” Carefully, deliberately, he drew her hand away from his cheek. “I pushed a boy out of a tower window, crippled him for life. For Cersei.” His sister’s name made Brienne flinch a little. _Yes, Brienne. You see me now._ “I strangled my own cousin, with my own hands, just to get back to Cersei. I would have murdered every man, woman and child in Riverrun. For Cersei. She’s hateful. And so am I.”

He left her sobbing in the courtyard and he didn’t look back.

 _For Cersei_ , his mount’s hooves said on the frost-rimed road. _For Cersei._

_Crippled a boy. Killed my kin. Would have done murder._

_For Cersei. For Cersei. For Cersei._

Every foul thing he’d done in his life had been for Cersei. For love of her, or for need of her, or from loyalty to her, all for Cersei.

She was hateful, and he hated her, but he couldn’t blame her, not for what he’d done. She had not corrupted him. She had not forced him. He didn’t even have the excuse of having been a green boy when it started, for she had been a young girl, and he had been as eager as she. How could it be wrong? They were the same person, after all.

When had it changed? When had _she_ changed? Perhaps when she was wedded to and bedded by a man who regarded her as nothing more than a cunt to get an heir in, perhaps earlier, when their father had begun to fill her head with tales of wedding a prince. She had wanted Jaime and he had wanted her, all through the years, but she had wanted more than him and he had wanted only her.  

  _For Cersei,_ said the hoofbeats, said the steady beat of his heart. _For Cersei. For Cersei._

He touched the pommel of his sword. _For Cersei._

 


	14. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne acts.

Ser Brienne stood straight and tall, and her face was as impassive as ever, but her eyes were red-rimmed. “My Lady Sansa, you must give me leave to ride south.”

Sansa felt a flash of anger, although she didn’t let it show in her face or even in her eyes. _Everyone is an enemy, and everyone is a friend …_

_No._ She forced the anger down, chose thought, would always choose careful thought. Ser Brienne would not abandon her. Ser Brienne would die before she broke an oath. Ser Brienne would die killing Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, if Jaime Lannister threatened Sansa Stark, however much she loved him. _I am not Petyr Baelish, as much as I learned from him. I am not so foolish as not to trust the trustworthy_.

“Why?” she asked. “Why must you go south?”

“He has gone to defend her.”

No need to ask who _he_ was, or _her_ , and it would be unspeakably cruel to make Brienne speak either of their names. “So it seems. Do you think you can dissuade him?”

Brienne shook her head. “That’s not why I must go, my Lady. He – he’s not what he was, but he’s still good. Your brother could beat him. The Hound could. Some others, but not as many as all that. And she has the Mountain, and the rest of the Queensguard must be at least competent. Your brother and his forces may have to fight through every inch of the Red Keep. They will need my sword.”

Sansa leaned her chin on her hand. “If you tell me you can kill the Mountain, Ser Brienne, I believe it.”

“Not the Mountain.” Brienne swallowed hard, and her chin trembled a moment. “You must send me south, Lady Sansa, to kill Ser Jaime Lannister, because I am one of the few knights I know to be good enough to do it.”

Sansa rose to her feet and took the few steps forward to face her sworn sword. “Can you, though?” she asked, softly, so no-one else would hear. “When the moment comes, can you?”

“I won’t fail you,” Brienne said steadily. “I will never fail you.”

“I know that,” Sansa assured her, and tears brimmed in Brienne’s blue eyes. “I would never ask it of you, you know. I _will_ never ask it of you.  I may not know how it is to feel … as you feel. But I know you feel it.”

“You are not asking,” Brienne said. “I am.”

Sansa nodded slowly. “Then ride south, Ser Brienne, and aid Jon Snow as best you can.”

One curt nod, and Brienne turned to go.

Sansa stopped her with a hand on her arm. “And Brienne, my loyal and brave Brienne – stay safe, and come back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know that canonically, Jaime loses a great deal of his fighting ability with the loss of his hand and despite his efforts, is never again really good. But then he fought a rampaging zombie horde and didn’t even get any serious wounds … so I’m going with, Jaime is still good enough to be dangerous, even to well-trained men (because I can't have Brienne say 'He has strong plot armour').   
> I also want to say that any previous references to Tyrion’s size, and any future references, are entirely from the viewpoint of the characters. I know that “dwarf” is considered offensive by some persons of short stature. I am trying to use language consistent with the source material and I hope I am also being respectful.


	15. Davos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the battle for King's Landing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is some weeks later than the previous chapter.

 

“I’ve no fucking business in a battle!” Davos ducked a sword swung at his head, shoved his own sharp bit of metal back and missed. “Shit!”

The man trying to kill him suddenly lurched sideways, exposing his neck, and this time Davos managed to skewer him. The mercenary fell, bleeding from both neck and thigh, revealing Tyrion behind him with an axe. “If you don’t belong here, neither do I,” the dwarf said. “But at this point it’s down to choosing how we die, and I’d rather die in battle than to my sister’s headsman.”

“I’d rather not die at all – behind you!”

Some archer got that foe, and a helpful citizen threw a chamber pot on the head of the next one and gave the two of them a fighting chance.

“We have to get to the Red Keep,” Tyrion said. “We have to kill my sister. It’s the only chance we’ve got, without the Queen.”

_Without the Queen_.

It hadn’t supposed to be like this, not like this at bloody all.

With Queen Cersei ensconced in the Red Keep with the people of King’s Landing her unwitting hostages and their depleted forces facing the Golden Company in the streets. With a dragon that was no use to them when every gout of flame risked starting a city-wide conflagration. With one last desperate gambit by the Dragon Queen, a streaking flight to reach Cersei, to spare the innocent and cut the head of the snake.

With Daenerys screaming as she fell, with her dragon screaming, pierced over and over again by those terrible bolts. Screaming, and screaming, until she stopped.

“That’s not a chance, that’s fucking suicide! If we can get to the docks –”

“She will find you. She will find everyone you love. She will kill them while you watch.”

“Everyone I love is already dead,” Davos said.

Tyrion grabbed his arm and pulled him into an alley. They crouched behind a pile of barrels. “Ser Davos Seaworth, you love children.”

“I’m not –”

“Not like that! I saw the way you were with Lady Mormont.”

“She was a brave little thing, and fierce.”

“And Arya Stark.”

“Twice as fierce.”

“And those little children when we all came out of the crypt. You’re not exactly a closed book, man. My sister will round up orphans and strays and torture them to death in front of you to torture _you_.  That’s the sort of woman she is. Do you understand? We have to get to the Red Keep, kill the Mountain and my brother, and then kill my sister and put _someone_ on the throne. I suggest Jon Snow, because as it turns out he has a very good claim.”

“You do know the last time he was in charge of anything he got himself murdered in a mutiny?”

“A king who can survive being murdered is a handy king to have,” Tyrion said.

“You do know that neither of us stands a chance against your brother, let alone the fucking Mountain?”

“Perhaps something will turn up.”

“Oh, that’s a good plan. Well thought through, that plan. I can see why they call you clever, with a plan like that.”

“It’s a desperate plan for desperate men who may be the only chance this realm has.”

“Your sister isn’t a particularly _bad_ Queen, over all, she’s just a bit vengeful.”

“She blew up the Sept of Baelor with wildfire and slaughtered hundreds.”

“Alright,” Davos had to admit. “That is a bit bad.”  

“We have to do _something_!” Tyrion straightened, and headed out into the street again.

_Fuck. Maybe the dwarf’s right._

_And it’s not like a man should outlive his sons._

He grabbed Tyrion’s shoulder and pulled him back. “Not that way. Through here.”

Tyrion followed him. “I forgot you grew up in this piss-stained shithole.”

“I did. The shit from the Red Keep’s privies flowed straight past my door.”

Tyrion stopped dead, looking up at him. “Privies. Connected to sewers.”

“Usually, yeah.”

The dwarf smiled. “As it happens, I know one or two things about sewerage systems.” He started forward. “Come on. We have to find Jon Snow.”

“If he’s still alive.”

He _was_ still alive, leaning against a wall in a lull in the battle. The majority of Cersei’s troops had given up on the city and withdrawn into the Red Keep. They filled the courtyard and lined the battlements. It was easy to see that charging the gate would be suicide, and clearly their enemies weren’t going to come out and give them a chance at battle.

“We’re fucked,” Jon said to Tyrion. “We can’t get in. They won’t come out. We need to withdraw and regroup –”

“Have I mentioned the caches of wildfire beneath the city?” Tyrion interrupted. “With her forces all inside the Keep, Cersei can simply ignite them beneath us as we withdraw.”

“Fucked if we go, fucked if we stay,” Davos said. “A few of us could keep up the pretence –”

“No,” Tyrion said. “ _Most_ of us will keep up the pretence, and a few of us will go into the Red Keep and kill the queen.” He put his hand on Jon’s arm. “And I hope you’ve got a strong stomach and very little sense of smell, my king.”


	16. Jon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Battle For The Red Keep, part one.

Jon Snow crawled through shit and thought. He thought a little about the possibility of dying – _again_ – because no man could keep from thinking at least a little about death before the fighting started. His father – _Ned Stark will always be my father_ – had told him it wasn’t weakness, or fear. _Just don’t dwell on it too much_ , he’d advised.

So Jon thought only a little about dying, and a fair bit about what he knew of the layout of the Red Keep, and also about how much he disliked crawling through shit.

And about how he was going to strangle the fucking Lannister dwarf if he heard _my king_ one more fucking time.

“We’re here,” Tyrion whispered.

Jon crawled forward. “There’s a fucking grate,” he said softly.

“It will unlatch. Somehow.” Tyrion felt around the edge.

“Why will it unlatch?” Davos muttered. “If I was building an impregnable castle, I’d make bloody sure no part of it bloody well _unlatched_.”

“That’s because you’ve never spent several years studying the finer details of shit,” Tyrion said. “It will unlatch because, from time to time, turds too large to fall through the grate will dry out, and build up, and block the sewer. Even the most paranoid of kings and queens will put their faith in a good strong lock on the grate before they’ll agree to having buckets of dried turds carted through their apartment periodically – ah. Got it. Who can pick a lock?”

“Did you not think to mention that we’d need someone to pick a lock?” Jon hissed at him.

“Oh, move aside,” Ser Brienne said impatiently. She edged between them, carrying Greyworm’s spear. Wedging the point of it through the grate, she heaved. Nothing happened, and she tried again. “Do you think you could stir yourself to help?”

It took, in the end, Greyworm as well as Jon lending their strength to Brienne’s, but the lock gave with a groan and the grate opened.

Climbing out of a privy wasn’t the way Jon had ever imagined entering the Red Keep, but one by one they emerged, as quietly as they could.

“This was Tommen’s apartment, before he became King,” Tyrion said softly. “We’re quite close to the Great Hall, inside Maegor’s Holdfast itself.”

“Where will Cersei be?”

 “In the past, she’s retreated to the Holdfast when the city is threatened, but now …” Tyrion shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know her well enough any more to have any idea of what she might do.”

“I doubt she feels particularly _threatened_ at the moment,” Davos said.

“We need to search through here, first,” Jon said. “And if she isn’t here, she must be in the Great Hall. There aren’t enough of us to split up. We go together, and search every floor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It only occurred to me that Tyrion knows a non-privy related secret way into the castle from his escape from the Black Cells after I wrote this. Sorry!


	17. Davos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Battle For The Red Keep, Part 2

They found frightened court ladies in the Holdfast, but not the Queen.

“Tie them up and gag them,” Jon said. “Gently – but we can’t have them raising the alarm.”

In the corridor that led to the Great Hall … dead men, and then more dead men, two of them of the Queensguard. _What by the Gods…?_

“Some of the Unsullied must have made it through the gate before it closed,” Greyworm said.

“And fought their way through the entire Golden Company and up through here?” Davos shook his head. “Your boys are good, but not that good.”

“Quietly now,” Jon warned, barely a breath of sound.

Davos clutched his sword and looked down at Tyrion holding his axe. _I really hope this bloody works, and not only because I’ll be drinking free off the story for the rest of my life_.

Sliding down the wall, Jon risked a quick look around the corner. Then a longer look. He got to his feet and signalled them to follow them.

The first thing Davos saw as he rounded the corner was the massive form of the Mountain. He was sprawled on his back, his helmet was off, and his face was nothing but a blackened lower lip and chin. Beside him, his brother the Hound was propped against the wall. He was bleeding from half-a-dozen wounds, and his right leg was bent at an angle nature didn’t provide.  

“Bit late,” the Hound said. “Could have fucking used you half an hour ago.”

Brienne knelt beside him and laid her hand on his broken leg. “I can straighten this for you. It’ll hurt, but then it’ll hurt less.” She studied him. “The rest of these won’t kill you, I don’t think.”

“I’m hard to kill.” He nodded at his leg. “Go on.”

With a quick wrench, Brienne aligned the limb. Clegane snarled and sweated but didn’t scream. After a moment he opened his eyes and said to Jon, “Your sister’s here. The little one.”

Jon frowned. “Arya? What’s she doing here?”

“Playing catch and come kiss with the courtly lads,” the Hound snarled. “Fucking slaughtering people, what do you think she’s doing? Last I saw her she was after Ilyn Payne.”

“Gods, he’ll –”

“And by _after_ I mean he was running from her.” The Hound sniffed. “The pack of you smell like shit.”

“We crawled in through the sewers,” Jon said. “How did you get in?”

“Rode in through the front gate with the rest of the smallfolk, because we’re not fucking idiots.”

 “And up here?” Davos asked.

“There’s half-a-hundred secret passages in this fucking place, and the girl chose one that wasn’t lined with shit. Because she’s not a fucking idiot.”

“No-one knows the secret passages of the Red Keep,” Tyrion protested. “No-one’s even sure they exist. Maegor had the builders executed.”

“You should say that to Arya.” The Hound put his hand to his side and then studied the blood on it. “Are you going to stand here yapping at me for another fucking hour, or are you going to do something useful like murdering your shit sister?”

“Do you know where she is?”

“Aye, with her narrow arse on that spiky fucking throne.”

“We’ll come back for you,” Brienne promised him.

He stared at her dourly. “If you don’t fucking die.”

One turn, another – more corpses. Davos counted the ones with the shiny armour. “How many Queensguard are they?”

“Seven, traditionally.”

“I’ve seen four of them dead. Five, counting the Mountain.”

“None of them were my brother, though,” Tyrion said.

“He might have left,” Jon said. “Before the battle even started. While we were on the road.”

Tyrion shook his head. “My brother keeps his word. He’s broken laws of Gods and men, he’s done treason, but the only times he’s ever gone back on an oath is when there was a greater oath opposed to it. He’s here. Somewhere.”

They rounded the final corner and found Euron Greyjoy before the door of the Great Hall. “There you are, you little freak,” he said to Tyrion. He grinned at them all, eyes wide and mad. “I’m going to enjoy killing you. All of you! I’ll mount your heads on the prows of my ships to keep me company at sea!”

“You’re outnumbered, and you’re alone,” Jon said wearily. “Drop your sword, or die.”

“What is dead can never die!” Euron Greyjoy shouted, and lunged.

Longclaw took his head and proved him wrong.

“Let me go first,” Brienne urged. “With Greyworm. Don’t risk yourself, Lord Snow.”

A wry smile twisted Jon’s lips. “Lord Snow.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “I'm neither. I know Lady Sansa charged you with keeping me safe, Brienne, but I won’t hang back and let other people fight my battles. I go first.”

Jaime Lannister, and perhaps one other Queensguard, still alive and guarding their Queen. _And Jon Bloody Snow, leading from the front._

“Let me go first,” Davos said, surprising himself, but then it was too late to take it back. “I’m no loss. At least you’ll find out if the room is lined with crossbowmen.”

“You’d be a great loss,” Brienne said.

He shook his head, resolve firming. “No. I’ve been fucking useless all day. Let me do one thing to help, before it’s all over.”

Jon gave him a long look, and then nodded. “Alright. I know the feeling. But I order you not to die.”

Davos took a deep breath. “You _are_ the king, then?”

Jon nodded, face grim. “Aye. Little as I want to be, and as shit as I’ll probably be at it, it turns out I’m the king.”

“Then, your grace, I’ll definitely do my best not to die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that some of these chapters have been quite short, I tend to break where it feels right and not use dividers in the text instead. I hope the rapidity with which I’ve been posting encourages you to forgive me!


	18. Davos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Great Hall of the Red Keep

 

 

Braced for the impact of arrows, Davos stepped cautiously forward. _Probably better to be fast than careful_ , _and make it harder for the buggers to aim_.

Too late now.

No arrows came. The room was silent. One armoured figure lay by the door, dead. _Six Queensguards_. And at the other end of the room, at the foot of the Iron Throne itself …

Davos let his sword fall clattering to the sword. “It’s safe,” he said.  

They lay together, the golden twins. _Golden no more._ Ser Jaime’s hair was more grey than anything else these days, and Cersei’s yellow locks were stained and matted with the blood that pooled around them both.

Davos took a step forward. He could see now that it was Jaime’s blood. The dagger was in Cersei’s hand still, just as Jaime’s hands, one golden, one flesh, were still around her throat.

Jon came to stand beside him. “Are they –”

Behind them, a terrible howl, like an animal in anguish. Brienne of Tarth pushed between them, sending Jon staggering, and fell to her knees beside Jaime and Cersei with a great clatter of armour against stone. She screamed again, wordless, and hauled Jaime away from his twin, cradling him in her arms and bowing her head to press her forehead to his. No tears, no sobs, only an awful broken keening sound that seemed like nothing a human throat could make.

Jon stood as if struck to stone by the sight. The throne; the dead Queen; one of the Stark’s loyalest servants in a desperate agony of grief.   It was Davos Seaworth, the Onion Knight, who went to stoop over Cersei.

He pulled off his glove and touched her neck, although there was no need to: her eyes were bulging and fixed, her face purple. She’d died hard. No pulse and cooling flesh beneath his fingers, and he glanced up at Jon. “She’s dead, alright. The Throne is yours, your grace.”

The new king – and what would they call him, King Jon Snow first of his name? – took a few steps forward, but not to the Throne. He crouched beside Brienne.

“Ser Brienne,” he said, and stopped. He knew as well as Davos did that there was nothing to say that could have any meaning in the face of a grief like that. He put his hand on her armoured shoulder. _As if the touch of mail gauntlet to metal plate could offer any comfort._

Davos moved to her other side and put his hand over one of hers. “Lass, lass, I’m sorry. He was a good man. But you need to lay him down now. We’ve still work to do.”

“No,” Brienne choked out, rocking back and forth with Jaime Lannister in her arms. “Not on the floor. Not down on the floor.”

Jon shrugged off his cloak. “On this. I don’t think he’d mind Stark colours, not now.”

Brienne nodded, and Jon spread his cloak across the floor, clear of the blood.

“Let me help you lay him down now,” Davos said. When Brienne hesitated, he put his own arms around the poor brave dead fool. “Let me help you, now, lass. Come on.” Jaime hadn’t been dead as long as his twin, and he was still warm. White as the new king’s namesake with loss of blood, but still warm, almost as if –

 “Lass, help me lay him down. Quickly now,” he said urgently, pulling at the lad’s gorget. “I think there’s life in him yet. Lay him down.”  

One startled stare, and Brienne scrambled to comply. “Jaime? Jaime?” She lowered the man tenderly onto Jon’s cloak, trapped her right hand in her left armpit and dragged off the gauntlet. Her hand shook as she touched Jaime’s cheek. “Jaime!”

The bloody buckle fought him as if it were alive, but Davos got it loose at last and felt at the lad’s neck. Nothing. He pressed harder. _Be there. Be there._

The pulse answered him, the faintest flutter of life, and Davos began to drag at the straps on the cuirass.

“Find a bloody maester,” he snapped at Jon, as if _he_ were the new king.

Jon turned and ran to obey, just as if he were still some green squire.

 

 


	19. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, the beginning of the aftermath

It was an unexpected rise out of darkness, slow, meandering, like a fish waking in the deepest part of the stream and wandering up through the current to the light.

_I am not a fish. That’s House Tully. I’m a lion._

_Or I was_.

He was a dead lion, that was certain. Not what he’d ever anticipated, that there was something after death, but there was definitely light on the other side of his eyelids now. What would he see if he opened his eyes? His father? His mother? He hoped for the latter, because she had been a good woman by all accounts and if he was where-ever she had gone there was a hope of seeing Brienne again.

It would take him a thousand years to apologise for not living long enough to say goodbye to her. But then, they doubtless had eternity for him to do it. _Being dead._

It wasn’t that he was afraid to open his eyes to find out what the afterlife held, but only that his eyelids were so heavy, as heavy as his fucking golden hand. He tried, failed, tried again.

“Jaime?”

A woman’s voice, familiar. And definitely not Cersei. Jaime felt a surge of relief. _Mother, then._ Were there other dead women who knew him by name? Not bad ones, he was sure. Not women who’d deserve one of the Seven Hells.

“Jaime, it’s alright, you’re alright,” she said, and calloused fingers tenderly traced his cheek. “I’m here.”

And that made no sense, because highborn women didn’t get callouses and he was sure he’d remember if he’d ever given a smith’s daughter or a farmer’s wife cause to touch him so gently and speak to him so sweetly and softly. The only woman with such soldier’s hands that he knew …

He managed to open his eyes, just a little, just for a second.

Just long enough to see Brienne of Tarth looking down at him with everything he’d never deserve in her beautiful blue eyes.

The dark water took him down again.

This time he fought it.

He hadn’t, lying on the floor of the Great Hall, looking into Cersei’s dead eyes. She’d always predicted they would die at the same time, just as they’d been born, and he’d always believed her, and now she’d made sure she was right. He would leave the world as he’d entered it, just little after his twin.

That was alright. He’d done what he’d come to do. He’d kept his oath to Brienne, to shield her back, to give his life for hers if need be. The Golden Company would surrender as soon as news of Cersei’s death reached them, and Jaime didn’t care much who ended up on the Iron Throne. He lay and stared into the eyes of the woman he had loved and loathed and fucked and killed and when the darkness swept over him he had gone into it without protest, knowing that Brienne would live, would live, would live.

There might not be an afterwards for Jaime Lannister, as Bran had warned him, but there would be for Brienne of Tarth.

Now he fought, deep in the dark, fought to surface, fought for light and breath and life. It was hard. He’d known when Cersei had got the first blow in, into the vulnerable place beneath his arm, that she’d struck something vital inside him and he wouldn’t survive it. _But for a little while. Let me have a little while._

_Let me open my eyes one more time, and see her face._

Where the light was, the pain was too. He fought that too, an even fiercer battle, fought and fought as he’d never fought before, not even on the battlements of Winterfell in the face of an unending wave of dead men. _I will open my eyes. Once more. I will open my eyes._

He managed it, and she was there.

There were new lines on her face, dark shadows beneath her eyes. It was no longer enough to open his eyes. Now he needed to speak. He summoned all the strength he had left. “Are you well?”

“Jaime!” Brienne framed his face with her hands. “Oh, Jaime.”

That was less informative than he wanted, and he had to try again. “Are you injured?”

“Some scratches, nothing serious,” she assured him. “I’ve had worse in the training yard.”

“I haven’t.” His voice was like a rusty hinge.  

Brienne gave a little snuffling laugh, and wiped her fingers across her cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do?”

That was another pain, a familiar one, that had been his companion through all the long miles south. “Why didn’t you know?”

“If you want people to know things, it helps to bloody well tell them,” Brienne snapped at him. “You’ve always stayed with her, gone back to her, been loyal to her. How was I to know this was any different?”

“Because …” Jaime paused. “Because.”

She snorted. “Because, very eloquent.”

The darkness was encroaching again, and he was so very tired. “Lift me up.”

Brienne slid her arm beneath him and raised him. It took only a little effort, not quite beyond him, to turn so his head rested on her shoulder. Instinctively, she steadied him, holding him close to her as she had once before, the first time she’d held him in her strong arms. One moment, before he’d faded into darkness, one perfect moment he’d never thought to feel again, Brienne’s strong arms around him, Brienne’s gentle hands. _I had more than many men get. And I have more now, at last, than many ever will._

He smiled, despite the pain. “I once told Bronn this was my dearest wish.”

Despite the darkness that was hazing his vision, Brienne’s frown was as clear as the sun on a cloudless day. “To be stabbed?”

“To die in the arms of the woman I love.”

She sucked in one astonished breath. “You can’t die.”

“I think I can,” Jaime said.

“You have to live.” She said that him once before, too, told him to live, and he had.

“For revenge, you told me once. Live to get revenge. Revenge on who?”

“Not for revenge, this time. For the people who need you. Your brother.”

“If he needs me, where is he?”

Brienne turned her head. “Tyrion!”

Across the room, a shapeless lump of blankets erupted and revealed itself to be Tyrion Lannister, blinking, face more deeply lined than Jaime had ever seen. “What? What! Is he –”

“Awake,” Brienne said. “Trying to die on us. Tell him not to be an idiot.”

His brother hurried across the room. “You’re not dying,” he said firmly.  “The maesters say you’ll mend. You need rest, and time, but you’ll mend.”

Jaime knew his brother too well to be fooled by his certainty. “You’re lying.”

“Well, they said you _might_ mend. So set your mind to it.”

Brienne cradled him, her arms impossibly strong and impossibly gentle. Any Lord comforting a dying bannerman might do so, but Jaime allowed himself to believe it meant more, it _was_ more. Despite what she’d believed of him in the courtyard of Winterfell, despite what he did and didn’t deserve. “You must fight. You must live.”

“For Tyrion.” His eyes kept wanting to close, and he let them.

“Tyrion needs you to live. But I want you to live for _me_ , Jaime. I need you to live. Please live.”

Jaime managed to open his eyes again and was rewarded once more by the sight of the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, in all the years of his life. “Brienne.”

“I’m here. I won’t leave you.”

“I know.” The sob that tore itself out of him hurt him somewhere deep in his chest. “Oh, Brienne, I know.”

“Don’t you leave me either, do you hear me? You fight. You fight, and you live, and you don’t leave me.”

And by all the Seven Gods, he had no choice, did he?

“Yes, milady,” he mumbled. “As you command.”


	20. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, Sansa has a conversation.

 

Sansa took a deep breath, shifted the goblets in her grasp, and knocked on the door.

“Enter!” Tyrion’s deep voice called. When she opened the door and stepped through, he leapt immediately to his feet. “My lady.”

“My lord.” She held out the goblets in her right hand and the flagon in her left. “I’ve heard you’re partial to Dornish?”

“I’m partial to almost every sort of wine, but a fine Dornish vintage is incomparable.” He drew a chair out from the table and held it for her.

Sansa sat down, and poured for them both. “I’m sorry that she died.”

“Which she? My sister or my Queen?”

“Both.”

Tyrion snorted, and drank. “You’re not. My sister was a monster, and Queen Daenerys would never have given the North the independence you crave.”

“Both those things are true.” Sansa sipped her own wine, barely wetting her mouth. “But one was your sister, and the other was your queen, and I’m sorry, for you, that you lost them both, especially on one day.” Her mouth was unaccountably dry, and she sipped again. “What will you do now?”

“Drink,” Tyrion said. “My brother seems reasonably likely to live, after terrifying us for several weeks. He is Lord of Casterly Rock and the head of House Lannister and I have every confidence he will produce a double handful of heirs – he’s proven himself fertile, after all, even if it was under unfortunate circumstances, and Ser Brienne is built like a … well, let’s just say she has what on other woman would be called ‘child bearing hips’.”

“But not on Ser Brienne?”

“I think a wise man would refrain from making any comments about Ser Brienne that were not scrupulously chivalrous in the event they got back to my brother. He won’t be on his sickbed forever.”

“So they will marry, you think?”

He shrugged. “It partly depends on you, my Lady. Ser Brienne would never marry without her liege lady’s permission. But if they don’t, they’ll both be miserable for their rest of their lives, so with your permission to meddle in the life of your sworn sword and advisor, I intend to make sure they do.”

Sansa set her goblet down, and ran her finger gently around the lip. “And you?”

Tyrion laughed. “My lady, my history with marriage has not been so agreeable.”

“Was I so bad?”

He frowned. “You were a scared young girl who found me repulsive. Not the best beginning to conjugal bliss.”

Sansa leaned towards him a little. “I’m not scared, or young, any more. And I’m not foolish enough to find you repulsive, I never was, you know. Not after the first time we spoke. You just … scared me.”

Tyrion raised his eyebrows. “Scared you? You could have picked me up under one arm and tossed me out a window.”

“You were a grown man with a grown man’s appetites and I was naïve enough to find that frightening. Then.”

He studied her over the rim of his goblet. “And now?”

Sansa took a breath. “Do you know how to be kind, my lord? And gentle?”

“I do.”

“And do you find the northern climate tolerable?”

“In parts.”

“Then, my lord …” She touched the laces of her bodice. “To take a leaf from your brother’s book … I find it most warm in here. Perhaps you would help me remove this?”

The moment when he laughed, and she realised he was laughing, not at her, but with delight and because she had genuinely amused him, was glorious. The moment when, taking her up on her invitation, he realised how she was shaking and stopped, and held her hands and murmured soothing nonsense until she stopped, was better. Better still was when he kissed her, and whispered that he had always found clever women irresistible.

And then he gently redid her bodice, hiding again the bare handswidth of flesh that had been bared. “You’re still frightened.”

“Not of you,” she assured him quickly.

“No, not of me. And you charge straight towards your fear to get past it, and I can understand that. But this should not be done in fear.” He finished the last lace, and kissed her again, very softly. “So with your permission, my Lady, I shall court you awhile yet.”

Sansa blinked at him. “Court me?”

Tyrion smiled. “Yes. I shall give you gifts, and pay you compliments, and stroll with you in whatever passes for gardens in the North. I shall not sing you songs, because I assure you that you wouldn’t find the experience agreeable, but I will certainly hire other people – women, and old men, and beardless boys, of course, because I won’t want any competition – to sing them to you. I will set myself to win approval from your family, and pick you flowers, a task I find laughably easy because I am already so close to the ground –”

Sansa began to laugh, and Tyrion put his hand on her cheek. “And I will make you laugh, Lady Sansa, every day and more often if my wit is equal to the task, and I promise on my life I will never, ever hurt you.” He paused. “And not just because I’m terrified of your family, and of Ser Brienne.”

Sansa smiled down at him. “I know,” she said softly. “Why do you think I’m here?”

 


	21. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two brothers, the last of the Lannisters.

 

There were many hours when it would have been far easier to die.

All of them, really.

But Brienne had ordered him to live, and so Jaime lay in the bed they’d carried him to and fought the pain.

Moving hurt, eating hurt, even breathing fucking hurt. His chest hurt, his gut, his legs and arms, his hands both real and imaginary. Sometimes he felt like even his hair hurt. It hurt when Brienne held his hand, it hurt when she laid her head down on the edge of his bed to snatch a little sleep, it hurt when she closed the door behind her on the way out and when she opened it again on the way in and when a pigeon flew against the window and when someone passed in the corridor.

And what the maesters did to him _really_ fucking hurt.

Sometimes it was night and sometimes it was day, and sometimes Brienne was there and sometimes Tyrion was and sometimes Podrick. Sometimes all of them. That let him know that time was passing, somewhere outside the pain. So did the fact that he periodically shit himself, and Brienne or Podrick cleaned him, just as they periodically held his cock so he could piss.

Jaime had no idea how long it was, days, weeks, it could have been years for all he could tell inside his prison of pain, but the time came when he opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling and realised that he’d actually have to _try_ to die, now, if he was going to, that he could loosen his grip a little and know he wasn’t going to slide over the cliff into the abyss. He realised, too, that it hurt when he breathed in, but not as much as it had, and it hardly hurt at all when he breathed out, and all the other pains had subsided to more-or-less endurable aches.

He turned his head and saw Tyrion perched at the desk beneath the window, scratching at a piece of parchment with a pen. “What are you doing?”

Tyrion looked up. “Crossing out the wrong word. How are you feeling?”

“I think I might live, after all.”

“Of course you’ll bloody live.”

Jaime smiled. “I love you, little brother.”

“As you should,” Tyrion said smugly. “I’m extremely lovable, at least according to most of the whores of Westeros, and they wouldn’t possibly have had any motivation to lie to me, would they?”

Jaime was surprised to find that it only hurt a little to laugh.  “Why was it the wrong word?”

“It didn’t rhyme as well as I wanted it to.”

Jaime raised his eyebrows. “You’re writing poetry?”

“Yes. I’m courting a highborn lady.” Tyrion paused. “Lady Sansa Stark. We’ve already been married the once, so there is a certain efficiency to it.”

“You’re mad,” Jaime said flatly. “She’ll never take a Lannister to her bed. Not after all we’ve done to her family.”

“Well, I happen to have a different opinion on that,” Tyrion said. He looked back at his parchment and wrote a few words.  

“It must be a bloody good poem.”

Tyrion laughed. “It’s terrible. It’s not the poem that determines my opinion. It’s the fact that she came to my room and said, and I quote loosely, ‘My goodness it’s hot in here, please help me take off my clothes’.”

Jaime gaped at him. “What?”

“Yes, you’ve set a trend, apparently.”

Jaime closed his eyes. “Either I’ve gone mad, or the world has.”

“Or both,” Tyrion suggested.

A thought struck Jaime, and he opened his eyes. “Is it Queen Daenerys, then?”

Tyrion bowed his head a little. “No. She … didn’t survive the battle. It’s King Aegon.”

“Who?”

“Well, as it turns out, there is rather more to Jon Snow than anyone knew. He’s not Ned Stark’s bastard. He’s Ned Stark’s entirely legitimate nephew and the son of Prince Rhaegar.”

Jaime stared at the ceiling for a while, and then began to chuckle. “I always thought it was odd how Ned let the boy take the Black. And how are the great houses taking it?”

“Well, Lady Sansa of House Stark, Lord Gendry of House Baratheon, and Lord Bronn of the House Blackwater are all backing him hard –”

Jaime snorted. “Lord Bronn.”

“Lord Bronn. Also in strong support, House Tully of Riverrun – they found one of the Blackfish’s bastards and legitimized him – House Lannister – I spoke on your behalf – Ser Davos of House Seaworth, Lord of Dragonstone, and Lord Varys Spider of Highgarden. And Dorne. So everybody else is being remarkably co-operative.”

“Who’s his Hand? You? Varys?”

“No, Davos. This is a new age, brother mine. The era of subtle men and cleverness is over. Now is the time of small words and simple motives.”

Jaime rolled his eyes. “I give it three months.”

“You always were an optimist.” Tyrion set his pen down. “You know, this is the longest you’ve been awake in weeks.”

“So it’s been weeks?”

“Five.” He paused.  “We’ve only been really certain you’ll pull through it for the last two. Why did you have to go and do something so bloody idiotic?”

“She had to be stopped.”

“Yes, and I was on my way to stop her. With Jon Snow, pardon, King Aegon, and your Brienne and a dozen others.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You’ve known me all my life and you didn’t guess?”

Jaime smiled. “I didn’t. Cersei did, though. You know what she said when she realised I meant to kill her? ‘It was supposed to be Tyrion’.”

His brother gave a shout of laughter. “I’m so glad she died still hating me more than you. Still, you should never have got close enough to give her a chance with that dagger.”

“I couldn’t run her through with Joffrey’s sword,” Jaime said quietly. “He was a monster, but he was _her_ monster.”

“I killed our father. You slew our sister. We’re quite the pair,” Tyrion said. He stood up. “If you’re going to stay awake, I’ll send for Brienne. You know she’s been here every moment Lady Sansa can spare her – and Lady Sansa’s spared her as often as she could.”

“I remember her being here,” Jaime said. “The details are a little hazy.”

“I’m going to tell you something,” Tyrion said. “She swore me to silence, until you’re stronger, but if she decides to tell you I want you to already know. If you’re going to rage about it, rage at me, now, and not at her.”

Jaime turned his head to look at his brother, whose expression was unusually grave. “What’s happened?”

“I’m afraid your fighting days are done, brother,” Tyrion said. “You’ll live, you’ll walk, you’ll ride and hopefully you’ll fuck a woman you’re not related to many, many times, but you’ve fought your last battle.”

“I fucking hope so,” Jaime said. “Is that it?”

Tyrion frowned. “You’re not upset?”

“I’m four-and-forty. Old enough to be a grandfather. If the last battle I fought in was the one against the army of the dead, that’s a good enough last line for my page in the White Book.”

“Fought against the dead at the Battle of Winterfell. Slew Queen Cersei in the battle of the Red Keep. Died in his bed at the age of eighty with a belly full of wine and a woman’s mouth …”

Jaime began to laugh, and they finished the sentence together.

 


	22. Brienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still more aftermath ...

 

She had never believed that Jaime would die, not for one moment since Ser Davos had found a pulse and called for a maester. The Gods could not be so unfair ( _Catelyn Stark and her son_ ) as to take his life ( _Ser Jorah Mormont and his niece_ ) when he had given so much ( _the men of the Night’s Watch_ ) and fought so bravely ( _the Unsullied_ ) and found his way through to the right side ( _Theon Greyjoy_ ).

Not when she loved him ( _Renly Baratheon_ ).

So when she came back to his room the night he truly woke and found him laughing with Tyrion over a joke they both vehemently refused to share, Brienne had not been relieved, or surprised, because she had never believed, not for one moment, that he would die.

She had simply made sure there was nothing he immediately needed, and gone to inform Lady Sansa.

It wasn’t until she finished saying _Ser Jaime is awake, my Lady, and much stronger_ that Brienne realised that tears were pouring down her face.

Lady Sansa was polite enough not to notice. She had several letters from Winterfell she wanted Brienne’s advice on, and by the time that was done, Brienne had managed to compose herself and was able to be cheerfully matter-of-fact when she went back to Jaime’s bedside.

A maester came, and declared the patient had well and truly turned the corner, and Brienne snorted and told him that was bloody obvious.

Podrick came, and cried a little, because he was young and overly emotional.

King Aegon came, and told Brienne to _cut it the fuck out_ when she bowed and formally announced him to Jaime. He had a copy of Jaime’s royal pardon with him, and with a great deal of throat-clearing he read it out in his unmistakably northern accent, and Brienne was fairly certain that Jaime cried a little when King Aegon got to the part about _having previously saved untold thousands of lives by slaying the Mad King before he could kill all in King’s Landing, defending the innocent according to the highest standards of honour_ and a little more at _henceforth known to all, by royal decree, as Ser Jaime Lannister, Oathkeeper_. She pretended not to notice, and her own eyes certainly stayed dry, or at least, they would have if the chimney hadn’t been smoking a little.

“Your brother told me,” the king said, laying the parchment on the bed. “All of it. I wish it had been known, earlier.”

Jaime moved his fingers to brush the edge of the scroll. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It might have.” King Aegon rubbed his forehead. “I’m shit at politics, and at most things being king seems to involve, but I do know that if it had been known it would have made a difference to my father – my uncle. To others. Perhaps to you. If he hadn’t hated you, would you have hated him? If he had trusted you, would he have trusted Littlefinger?”

The corner of Jaime’s mouth turned up, a shadow of his old, cutting smile. “There was the small matter of his discovery that I was sleeping with my sister and committing high treason by doing so.”

“And if he’d come to you about it, instead of your sister, with the offer to leave in safety?”

“Your grace,” Jaime said faintly.

“He’s very tired,” Brienne said. “Your grace.”

King Aegon nodded, and rose to his feet. “Ser Brienne.”

She bowed. “Yes, your grace?”

“I get enough bloody _your gracing_ and _my kinging_ from people I don’t know to last a fucking lifetime. If I have to make a formal order of it I will, but I’ve also had enough formal orders to make me sick of the sight of the seal, so will you just call me Jon?”

Brienne blinked at him. “I don’t think I can. Really.”

“I can live with ‘my lord’ if you really have to,” the king said. “But I can’t be having with people who fought living corpses to defend my home, because I asked them to, carrying on as if I’ve suddenly become more important than them. The important ones are those who fell. They’re the ones who deserve your respect, not me.”

“Yes … my lord,” Brienne said.

“He’ll make quite a good king, I think,” Jaime said when King Aegon had left. “At least the speech-giving and sword-waving bits of kingship. He’ll need a better Hand, of course.”

Brienne frowned. “Ser Davos –”

“A subtle king needs a blunt hand. A blunt king needs a subtle hand. Jon is a battering ram, and Davos is a hammer.”

Brienne stared at him, scandalised. “You can’t call him –”

“He asked me to, and he’s the king,” Jaime pointed out. He raised his hand from the royal pardon he’d been caressing. “Come closer, please, Brienne?”

She knelt beside the bed and took his hand. “Do you need anything?”

“For you to tell me you’ve forgiven me at some point in the last, Tyrion tells me, five weeks.”

“Forgiven you for what?”

“For not telling you, in exactly so many words, that I was intending to kill Cersei.”

Brienne nodded. “I have. Have you forgiven me, for not knowing that was what you meant to do?”

He turned his head on the pillow to look at her. “Why didn’t you? Because I’d always been such a shit that you couldn’t believe I’d changed?”

Brienne laced her fingers through his. “You’ve never been a shit.”

“Then why?”

She looked down at the coverlet. “Because all my life, men like you have been looking past women like me to look at women like her.”

“Oh, Brienne.” Jaime’s fingers tightened around hers. “Don’t you know? There are no women like you.” When she looked up, he was gazing at her with the same expression as he’d had when he’d made her a knight. “Only you.”

So she ended up crying in front of him, after all.


	23. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime is mending, but not as quickly as he'd like.

 

Now the Stranger had released Jaime from his hand, he recovered in leaps and bounds. Soon he was allowed to sit up, propped against pillows, able to see the wall instead of the ceiling, for most of the day. After that, the next milestone was spending the day in a chair instead of abed, even able to totter back and forth on his own.

Going to the privy by himself and wiping his own arse was a victory he’d never thought to celebrate. _But here we are._

_Ser Jaime Lannister, Vanquisher of the Latrine._

There had been a time when he would have been furious, or despairing, at his infirmity, but all Jaime could find within himself now was gratitude that he was alive, and growing stronger, and that Brienne of Tarth slept beside him every night.

Gratitude, and admittedly a little impatience, because Brienne of Tarth slept beside him every night and he was still not strong enough to roll her over and bury himself inside her, and every time he suggested she roll _him_ over and have her way with him, she insisted he wasn’t well enough yet.

“I’m a war hero,” he tried. “It’s one of the mandated benefits of being a war hero, grateful maidens.”

“I’ll see if I can find any,” Brienne said, and made Jaime laugh until he coughed. She shot him a dark look. “See?”

“I could just lie still.” His next attempt, coupled with his most pathetic and pleading look. “I’m strong enough to lie still.”

“The maesters say, not yet,” Brienne said.

Jaime rolled over to gape at her. “You’ve talked to the maesters about our love-making?”

Brienne snorted. “Do you think this is any easier for me? Of course I have.”

“And what do they say?”

“When you can walk up a flight of stairs and not lose your breath, it will be safe.”

He grinned at her profile. “What if I’d rather be happy than safe?”

Brienne turned and took his face between her hands. “You are not allowed to die on me, Jaime Lannister,” she said fiercely. “Do you understand? I don’t care if you die happy with your cock in my cunt, you’ll still be dead, and I’ll be alive, and I will grieve for you every day of my life. So think of cold water or whatever.”

“You’d grieve for me?” he asked softly.

Brienne sniffed. “Of course. How can you even ask?”

“I still find it incredible.” Jaime edged closer to her, managed to steal a kiss before she put distance between them again and rolled over to show him her back. “Here I am, a crippled invalid. And here you are, the most famous knight in the Seven Kingdoms …”

“Oh, shut up,” Brienne said, but she was laughing, and she let him put his arm around her and press his face to the back of his neck, and it was enough and not enough at the same time.

The next day, after Brienne had left to see what tasks Lady Sansa had for her that day, Jaime looked at the ceiling and thought _a flight of stairs._

“Podrick!” he shouted. “Get yourself in here!”


	24. Tyrion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime is impatient.

 

Tyrion rounded the corner and stopped.

“No, I’m alright, Podrick,” his brother’s voice said.

“If you fall, my lord, she’ll –"

Tyrion hurried forward as fast as he could. Jaime was at the top of the stairs, clinging to the balustrade, grey-faced and drenched in sweat.

“Sit down, you great fool,” Tyrion said. He reached up and wrapped his arms around his brother’s waist. “Lean on me. I’m strong enough – stronger than you, right now.”

“I’m –” Jaime gasped.

“About to fall down the fucking stairs,” Tyrion said.

Jaime gave Tyrion his weight, and with Podrick’s help, Tyrion lowered him to sit on the top step.

“What in the name of the Seven do you think you were doing?” he demanded.

“Trying to – build up – my strength,” Jaime said, still breathless.

“That’s not how it’s done,” Tyrion said sharply. “Even _I_ know that.”

Jaime leaned his head back against the wall, and the opened his eyes and grinned at Tyrion. It was exactly the same smile he’d had as a boy of four-and-ten, before the Kingsguard, before all of it. “She says I have to be able to walk up the stairs, first.”

“Seven hells,” Tyrion said. “You’re completely cunt-struck.”

Podrick made a strangled noise and coughed convulsively.

“Shut up, Podrick,” Tyrion said. “You and your magic cock will never know what it’s like. You will never know the pain of denial, the suffering –” Jaime had recovered enough to laugh, Tyrion was relieved to see. “The longing! The agony!” he declared as dramatically as he could, and Jaime laughed until he wheezed.

They got him back to bed between them, Tyrion and Podrick – mostly Podrick, if Tyrion was honest – wrapped up in the coverlet and dozing in exhaustion.

“You should perhaps tell her,” Tyrion said to Podrick. “That he’s willing to kill himself for a chance at her cunt.”

Podrick gave him a sideways glance. “If you think I’m going to talk to Ser Brienne about her private parts, you are not only the shortest but also the stupidest Lannister.”

Tyrion laughed. “I always liked you, Podrick.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Podrick said. “I’m still not going to talk to Ser Brienne, though.”

“No-one is talking to Brienne about this,” Jaime said firmly.

“Are you going to behave?” Tyrion asked. “Because the only way this misguided escapade stays secret is if you stay in your sickbed like a good little wounded war-hero and do what the maesters tell you.”

Jaime sighed. “I’ll behave.”

Nevertheless, before the day was out, Tyrion paid several of the servants with duties in that part of the Keep to keep a discreet eye on him.

“It’s rather touching how you worry about him,” Sansa said when he told her during their daily walk in the gardens – leaving out the detail of his brother’s motivation.

“He’s the only family I have left, given between us we killed the others.” Tyrion stooped and picked a flower.

“I mean …” She took the flower when he offered it and turned it between her fingers.

“I know what you mean. For a long time, he was my only friend in the world. When we were children, my father despised me and Cersei loathed me for killing our mother. But you know all that.” He picked another flower. “You don’t know about Jaime. He brought me toys and played with them with me. He taught me to ride, and gave me my first pony. I was his brother, not his _dwarf_ brother, and he loved me as a brother with all his heart when there was not another person in the world who viewed me with anything but scorn. He loved me with all his heart, and for all his many failings, he has a great heart. He was not always the man you met, Lady Sansa.” He offered her the flower, and smiled when she added it the first. “People remark that he’s changed, but to me, he’s been more like himself these past months than for many years. I very much want him to live, and to be happy – and to be Lord of Casterly Rock so I don’t have to.”

Sansa smiled slightly. “You would make a very good Warden of the West.”

“Ah, but my heart, Lady Sansa, my heart is given to the North.” He paused. “I know you’ve delayed your return home to Winterfell while my brother has been deciding whether to live or die, and I thank you for it.”

“I couldn’t take Ser Brienne away from his bedside. I owe her so much, and a few weeks longer in King’s Landing is so little.” They reached the end of the path and she stood a moment looking out over the water, hands on the warm stone of the low wall, his flowers forgotten beneath her fingers.  “I should release her from her oath, to stay here with him, and take the road North, I know. I will have to release her, eventually. Even without your brother, there’s Tarth to consider.”

Tyrion reached up to cover her hand with his own. “But she has been with you for so long, and through so much, and so you delay as long as you can.”

She smiled down at him. “Yes. Foolish of me, isn’t it?”

“I don’t relish the prospect of being parted from Jaime, either. If only my sister hadn’t murdered my extended family …” He shrugged.

“Surely, Lord Tyrion, with your reputation, you have a few sons somewhere named Sand or Snow or Waters or Hill. Or did you fail to give them any name at all?”

“I would have acknowledged them, had I had any, but since you know my reputation, you must also know that the women I earned it with were …”

She snorted slightly. “You can say whores, my Lord. I’m not easily shocked.”

“And whores tend to take precautions against breeding, even with sons of noble houses. A man supporting his bastard’s mother is a matter of chance, while lost income while breeding one is a certainty.”

“Then your grand plan to ensure his happiness is doomed, isn’t it? She will be the Evenstar. He will be the Lion. The width of Westeros will be between them.”

Tyrion sighed. “In some ways, life was much simpler when my sister was trying to murder us all.”

 


	25. Brienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, things are decided.

 

Brienne closed the book sharply. _An Account of the Victory of Andals Over The First Men of Tarth_ was a complete disappointment.  She had hoped, when she found it in the Royal Library, that it would contain some useful information about the effectiveness of different sorts of defences – Tarth was often troubled by pirates – but it was annoying short of details.

“You should ask Jon for some of those damned crossbows they used against the dragons,” Jaime said. “Move them where they’re needed, when they’re needed.”

Brienne looked over the bed to find him watching her, quiet amusement in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.” Jaime raised himself on his elbow and reached out to her with his good left hand. “I’ve been awake for a while, watching you puzzling over your future responsibilities.”

She went to him, lacing her fingers through his and sitting beside him. “Puzzling over how I can best avoid them.”

“I told you.” He tugged her gently, and when she swayed towards him, leaned up a little more to brush his lips to hers. “Adopt Podrick.”

“I can’t –”

Jaime took advantage of her parted lips to deepen the kiss, his tongue tracing hers. “Adopt Podrick.”

Brienne smiled. “Jaime …”

He let go of her hand and hooked a finger through the laces of her shirt. “Adopt Podrick. Do what you really want to do, which is go back to Winterfell and be the shield that guards Sansa Stark’s back.”

She put her hand over his. _Go back to Winterfell._ A week’s hard riding from King’s Landing – at best. And even further from Casterly Rock than Tarth. “Is that what you want me to do?”

“Brienne.” His fingers closed on the fabric of her shirt and he pulled with surprising strength, hard enough that she had to yield or risk it tearing. Jaime captured her mouth and suddenly turned them so she was beneath him. “I want you to stay here in this room, in this bed, with me, until the end of time. But we can’t do that, because eventually they’ll forget we’re here and stop feeding us.” She snorted, and he smiled. “So I think you should do what makes you happiest, my Brienne. Personally, I’d prefer Tarth, since I hate the fucking North, but I’ll endure it for your sake.”

She stared at him. “But what about –”

“Fuck Casterly Rock, and fuck House Lannister, and fuck all of it. I have done everything I could for my family and my house and I lost everything for the sake of it. I won’t lose you, Lady Brienne of Tarth, Ser Brienne of Winterfell, not for my House and not for my family and most definitely not for some pile of crumbling rock that hasn’t been my home since I was a bare-cheeked boy.” He kissed her again, so tenderly it brought tears to her eyes. “And besides, it’s not done for a knight to live apart from his wife. People gossip.”

Brienne pulled back. “Your wife?”

He gave a little shrug. “Well, you don’t think I’m letting anyone else marry you, do you?”

“You don’t have to marry me, just because –”

His smile, once so mocking, so sharp and cruel that she’d hated to see it, was such a gentle thing, now. It was like Jaime himself was: all the hard edges worn away by time and pain and grief. Brienne traced it with her fingers and he spoke against them. “Just because I love you?”

“Do you?” She could hear the pleading note in her own voice, and hated it, hated the weakness that made her doubt, and ask, but when he had said it, he had been mazed with weakness and fever, and for all his sweet words, he had never said it since.

“I do,” Jaime said gravely. “Do you love me, Ser Brienne of Tarth? Please say yes, or I shall be … very sad.”

Brienne framed his face in her hands. “I do love you, Jaime. I have for a long time. I would die for you.”

He snorted, and turned his head to kiss her palm. “I tried that, but it failed to take. So what do you say to the idea that instead of dying for each other, we live with each other instead? Now and always.”

Brienne nodded. “From this day, until our last day.”

Jaime leaned down to rest his forehead against her. “From this day, until our last day,” he agreed. “And there’s one more thing you should know, my knightly wife, my wifely knight.”

“What’s that?”

Raising his head, he gave her a mischievous smile. “I walked up the stairs today.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had planned that as the last line, but I also have some bits of an epilogue written, so please let me know if you’d like it posted (I suspect it of being not terribly good).


End file.
